Electric Shock
by inkbender
Summary: Some children are born smart or beautiful; seventeen were born electric. Now the company that created them is taking them, one by one, away from their families - but for what purpose? ON HIATUS.
1. Four Years Old

**Disclaimer: All characters and plotlines and such belong to ****Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25****, by Richard Paul Evans. ****Glee characters, of course, belong to Fox. ****I don't own anything but my extremely overactive imagination that popped out a particularly insistent plot bunny. **_**Author's Rant **_**at the bottom!**

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><p>Mommy doesn't notice when Kurt trips and slides to his knees in the backyard gravel. Not when he screams in pain and grabs his knee.<p>

"Mommy?"

Mommy doesn't look up.

"Mommy!" Kurt's hand and khaki shorts are speckled in blood and it makes him cry even harder. "MOMMY! MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY—"

Mommy doesn't turn around. She has headphones on and bobs her head of dark brown curls while chopping up veggies in the kitchen, but Kurt is more important than that. He's angry that Mommy ignores him and focuses on her head through the open kitchen window, channeling his hurt and pain straight into her mind.

"_MOMMY."_

Mommy jumps maybe a foot into the air and shrieks. Something clatters to the floor. However, Mommy doesn't come outside and comfort Kurt. She disappears from the window, and Kurt eventually picks himself up and hobbles into the house.

Mommy comes from the bathroom, her finger wrapped in bloody paper towels. Kurt begins to cry anew when he sees her, reaching out for her.

She recoils. Just a small flinch, but Kurt sees. He bursts into tears, unable to hold himself back. "Mommy, I hurt myself," he sobs, holding his knee. And then Mommy gets Kurt a Band-Aid and tells him big boys don't cry while cleaning his knee and putting the bandage on with a kiss.

She sends him back out into the yard so she can keep making dinner. She smiles for him, a huge show smile. But Kurt remembers the crazed fear in her eyes even when she disappears back into the house.

_I did that_, he thinks. _I hurt Mommy again._

* * *

><p>Kurt has always known what people are feeling. If they're happy or sad or mad or scared, Kurt just <em>knows<em>. His first memory (Mommy leaning over him, a huge smile on her face) was accompanied by a huge sense of happiness that Kurt knew was Mommy's.

It's only been the past couple months since Kurt became able to affect what people feel. It's only if they're scared, though. It's the emotion Kurt can grab easiest. It happened first with Mommy; she'd been talking on the phone with her manager again and Kurt tried to get her attention. She brushed him off and Kurt had a minor fit. Just a brief flare of emotion; a bit of jealousy because she didn't drop everything to pay attention to him. The next thing he knew, Mommy was crouched on the other side of the room, terrified of the phone now lying on the floor.

The next week, Azimio, a boy at daycare who was twice Kurt's size, made fun of him for liking pink—within minutes, Azimio was crying hysterically, unable to breathe as he curled up on the floor.

It's not normal, Kurt knows that much. The teacher can tell when some kids are sad and try to cheer them up. Azimio can make other kids scared of him. But only Kurt knows immediately that Sugar is really sad and is only pretending to be happy. And only Kurt can _make_ Azimio scared, like make him scared without even doing anything like punching him or saying mean words.

And people are starting to notice. It's been two months since the teacher called Mommy, and Mommy has gray hair now. She tells him that everything's okay, that he's not a freak. But as much as Kurt wants to believe her, he can feel the fear in her mind, the ever-present neural connections ready.

All he has to do was shock it.

* * *

><p>"Give that to me!" Sugar demands.<p>

Kurt shakes his head and clutches the doll tighter. "No. Go away."

"I want it! Give it to me!" Sugar's three friends surround him on all sides. Kurt shrinks back.

"No, I found her first," Kurt says. The doll's dress is white, so white, with pretty lace around the rim. It's just the thing Kurt would want to wear at his wedding, staring lovingly across the room at his—

His thoughts are interrupted when Sugar's friends converge, nails scratching at him. They scream and claw at him mercilessly. "Give it to her give it to her give it to her!"

"No! Go away! It's mine!" Kurt curls around the doll. He tries to tuck his head in, but Sugar grabs his hair and yanks it so she can scream in his face.

"I WANT IT."

Kurt looks her squarely in the eye, reaching into her mind at the same time and pulling at the fear tucked there. "_GO AWAY._"

He pulls her fear from its hiding spot and feels it blossom underneath his guidance, crackling synapses coming to life and firing rapidly. Sugar suddenly stumbles back, screaming at the top of her lungs. Sugar's three friends stand paralyzed at just the sight of their leader on her knees, tears streaming down her chubby face. Immediately, the other children gather round, followed by the teacher.

"What's going on? Kurt!"

Kurt's concentration snaps as the teacher's heavy hand lands on his shoulder. His hold over Sugar's mind breaks. The electrical signals die away but Sugar continues screaming, clutching to the teacher's coat like it can save her life.

As the teacher leads Sugar back into the building, she shoots Kurt a look of pure hate through her tears. Kurt keeps on a brave face, cradling the doll in his arms as the other children give him uneasy or disgusted looks.

He doesn't cry.

* * *

><p>Mommy cries.<p>

She cries alone in her room, but Kurt still hears her. Small little sobs. She thinks that Kurt won't hear if she cries into her pillow, but Kurt knows it's because of him. Because she can't find a job; because nobody will hire her for a theater production; because they're running out of money; and most of all, because of him. Kurt scares her. The daycare teacher won't let Kurt go anymore because Kurt won't stop bullying the other children. Sugar's daddy is really angry at Kurt and threatens to sue. Or at least get Kurt sent far away to get fixed.

A strange man called Will picks Kurt up from his last day in daycare. On the phone, Mommy says that it's okay to go with him, because Mommy got a role in a place called Broadway and she'll be very, very busy, but that Will will take care of him and Mommy will come visit every once in a while, but that Elgen Academy will help him get better. When it comes time to say bye-bye, though, Mommy sounds very sad. "I love you, Kurt. You hear? I love you so much."

"I love you too, Mommy," Kurt says automatically, but he means it.

"Goodbye." Maybe it's because he can't see her and can't reach into her mind, but Kurt thinks she sounds very, very sad.

* * *

><p>Kurt's room is pink. The poster bed is pink with soft pink drapings like a fairy's nest; stuffed animals line the room and there's a little vanity mirror with real makeup. He has tea with real cookies and lemonade, gets to swing as long as he wants, has cake for lunch, and plays with some kittens. At the end of the day, he talks with Mommy through the TV, and in the morning, he doesn't have to go to daycare and hide from Sugar or Azimio or the teacher. The entire morning, he gets to watch TV until somebody takes him to a big white room and connects him to some cold wires and has him sit still for forever while an ugly old nurse checks some things on a machine.<p>

At first, Kurt is just nervous; he wants to get back to watching TV. Then he gets a little scared; the ugly old nurse doesn't say anything, and, when Kurt looks into her mind, she isn't feeling much either. They're all alone in this big white room with the machines. Kurt is getting jittery and maybe feeling like he wants to go home, or back to the warm pink room. Or he just wants Mommy to hold his hand.

The man from yesterday enters the room just then. Will. He smiles warmly at Kurt. "Hello, Kurt. Sorry to make you wait, but I think we're just finishing up. Right, Nurse Beiste?"

"Sure thing, Dr. Schuester," the nurse replies. "Just one more thing…" And she pulls out a needle.

Kurt immediately flinches, and Will notices. "Now, are you sure that's necessary?" he asks, standing between Kurt and the nurse. Kurt feels immediate gratitude.

The nurse nods grimly. "I'm sorry," she says, stepping closer to Kurt. "Don't worry kid, it'll only feel like a bee sting."

"Bee stings hurt," Kurt whimpers, pressing closer to Will.

"You get used to 'em," the nurse scoffs, bringing the needle ever closer. Kurt squeezes his eyes shut.

Will deflects the nurse's arm. "That's enough," he growls, and the nurse hesitates, then puts the needle down and bows out of the room. "I'm sorry, Kurt. That wasn't supposed to happen. Are you okay?"

Kurt shakes his head.

Will slings an arm around Kurt's shoulders. "You know what I think can make it better?"

Kurt shakes his arm, eyes still squeezed shut.

"How 'bout an ice cream cone?"

* * *

><p>An hour later, Will leads him to a small room with windows looking into another larger room. They sit down on chairs, with Kurt sitting in a higher chair so that he can look Will straight in the face. Kurt squirms a little, taking occasional peeks at the far-away floor.<p>

"What was your favorite flavor?" Will asks kindly, sitting back in his chair.

Kurt considers briefly. "Mint chocolate chip. But it needs more chocolate."

"I'll make sure they put more chocolate in it," Will promises. "Now, about your power…"

Kurt's insides twist, and he finds sudden interest in his brand-new sneakers. They're very comfortable and soft and make flashing red lights every time he takes a step.

Will gestures out the window at the other room. "Remember the nurse from earlier? I want you to use your power on her."

Kurt looks through the window. Sure enough, the ugly old nurse from before is standing in the room, feeling at the walls. Resentment courses through Kurt at the sight of her. He looks at Will for confirmation.

"Go ahead, Kurt," Will assures him.

Kurt looks back at the nurse and focuses on her head through the glass. However, she's too far away; or the glass window is in the way; or both. He turns to Will. "I can't feel her," he says, knocking on the window.

Will nods and slides open a part of the wall next to the window, then rolls Kurt's chair over to the opening. Kurt focuses on her head until she comes within range—he reaches into her mind and senses the presence of that certain area that responds to fear. When he'd first accidentally done it to his mommy, he'd blindly reached forward and yanked up whatever he could grab. Now, after a few repeats, Kurt knows where to look: a fine network of firing neurons, small arcs of electricity that he simply adds to. He stimulates them, pouring in a little more electricity, and the fear center of the nurse's brain goes wild—all synapses firing at once, a tiny thunderstorm raging out of control, and the nurse is screaming, pawing at the floor and at her tear-streaked face, her limbs flailing uncontrollably—

Will pulls Kurt away from the portion of the wall and slides it shut. Kurt instinctively flinches against looming harsh words… but Will is smiling, a firm hand on Kurt's shoulder.

"Well done," Will grins. "That was a very good job. I think this calls for another ice cream cone."

Kurt nods eagerly.

* * *

><p><span>Will's Observations<span>:

Kurt:  
>- empathetic and understanding; very much a people person.<br>- eager to please, very trusting, and takes instruction easily.  
>- much room for development, both in personality and superpower. Has described his power as "reaching into people's heads and shocking a certain part." Possible electrotherapy applications?<br>- responds well to classical piano and Broadway.  
>- wants more kittens, more chocolate in mint choco chip ice cream, colored pencils, hats, and a pair of heels (no doubt what this kid's sexual orientation is. No problem.)<p>

Presence of possible electrical child detected. Incident report: large magnetic disturbance in shopping mall. No injuries, but strange behavior by child reported by concerned mother. Investigate immediately.

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><p><em>Author's Rant<em>

_I really shouldn't be doing this. I've got three other stories waiting to be written... but I saw the book at my university's bookstore, picked it up, and read it in four hours. It's a good read: _Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25_, about a kid with electrical powers finding that there's a company called Elgen that has collected 11 other kids with variants on electrical abilities and plans on using them for domination purposes. Go look it up to find out if it's worth any reading to you; but for me, I skipped class, skipped lunch, and afterwards, I sat down and began brainstorming for this story._

_Because truthfully, although there was lots of good action, I was disappointed by the lack of character development. Nobody really made any improvement or deteriorated throughout the storyline. At the end, I wanted some justification or redemption; no dice. Bad guys were still as evil as ever and the good guys were still good, and nobody had really moved from their cookie cutter molds._

_So I wrote this story with that in mind: I want to flesh out all the characters a bit more. Other than the main character and his girlfriend, both of whom narrate different sections of the book, there are still 15 other electrical children that the book doesn't talk about. We don't get to see anything from their perspective, and we certain don't get to delve into any of their histories or personal motivations or reasons for fighting._

_And the reason why I've transposed Glee characters onto this story? Because I love Glee that much and I want to write about them. My other Glee story deals more with __The Glee Project__ contestants, and hardly ever with the core Glee members. I'm trying to integrate them a little more, but it's almost too far gone for that. So this is my make-up story, compensating for my lack in another story. Plus, when I was brainstorming for this, the __Michael Vey__ and the __Glee__ universes really fit together. I could see this Glee character playing as this __Michael Vey__ character because they went through this and this, etc._

_**Warning**__: some things from both the __Michael Vey__ and the __Glee__ universe have been changed for this story. For instance, the __Michael Vey__ universe's Tara is represented by Kurt in this story. Obviously Tara is a girl and Kurt's a guy, but really, I've made it work quite well. And Kurt's dad Burt doesn't make an appearance in this story; however, Kurt's mom (who, in the __Glee__ universe, is deceased) plays a very integral part. I'll explain changes as they come up in these Author's Rants._

_Well, that is quite the rant! I'm really excited for this story to take off! Please leave reviews!_

**Words: **2800**  
><strong>


	2. Five Years Old

**Mercedes Jones**

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><p>"Mercedes! Daddy says we need to go now!"<p>

Mercedes looks longingly at the jewelry display in the store window. The gems sparkle in the light and all five-year old Mercedes wants right now is that necklace—the silver one studded with tiny purple jewels, with a heart hanging at the bottom. That's what she wants. That's all she ever wants.

Her bossy older sister stands ten feet away, stomping her foot as their parents wander away from them. "MUR-SAY-DEEZ!" she screams even louder. "We're leaving! Right now!"

Mercedes turns hesitantly away from the window, unable to take her eyes off the display even as her body turns towards his sister. "Okay," she calls placatingly. "Just a minute."

Right when Mercedes glances at her sister, though, the hanging necklace appears to twitch in her direction. Mercedes' eyes snap right back to the necklace—it's still moving, swinging back and forth as it an invisible wind has stirred it.

An invisible wind in a closed glass case. Impossible.

"MURRRR-SAYYYY—"

"That's enough, Amber," Mommy interrupts, and Mercedes glances back to see her entire family waiting for her. Shamefully, she scampers over to join them.

She only looks back once.

The necklace still sways in the invisible wind.

In fact, all the jewelry is swaying in unison.

* * *

><p>Mercedes has trouble tying her shoes. She remembers to hang her jacket up on the hook unlike most of her other classmates; she can recite most of the ABC's from memory; she can finger paint and color within the lines just fine; and she always holds her bladder, unlike Matt, another black kid in her class, who has an accident maybe every other week. But Matt can tie his shoes, and she can't. And as of last week, whenever the teacher isn't looking, Matt has pointed and laughed at her when she fails to run the rabbit around the tree and into the right hole and ends up with a double knot that even their cheerful and super nice teacher, Mrs. Pillsbury can't untie.<p>

Their whiteboard has little colored magnets with different shapes. Mrs. Pillsbury uses them as markers for getting-your-name-on-the-board: if you disobey the teacher, your name goes on the board with a magnet right next to it. Mercedes' name has never been on the board, because she's a good student. And because Mrs. Pillsbury is always nice to her. Mercedes thinks that she is Mrs. Pillsbury's favorite student.

Until today, when Mercedes points and laughs at Matt for wetting himself again. Matt bursts into tears, and Mrs. Pillsbury looks at Mercedes sternly.

"Making fun of Matt is not acceptable," Mrs. Pillsbury says as she places a purple square magnet next to Mercedes' name.

The class gasps, and Mercedes can feel her face filling with hot blood. No. No. This can't be happening. Mrs. Pillsbury can't do to her! Matt's the one laughing at her, not the other way around! And she's always been so perfect, so why is this happening now?

This is the worst day of her life. Mercedes buries her head in her arms and tries to hold back her tears.

When she looks back up, Mrs. Pillsbury is back at her desk. It's coloring time, and everybody else is busy keeping within the lines. Mercedes can't see anything more than the purple magnet next to her name. It's not fair. This isn't fair. It's Matt's fault. This is the worst day of her life. That purple magnet is the reason why she's so miserable. She just wants to pick it off the board and fling it to the floor. Or toss it out the window. But she can't, because her name and the magnet are at the top of the board, twice the height of Mercedes.

But if she could reach it… she'd erase her name and pick the magnet up and bean Mrs. Pillsbury in the head with it. That would satisfy her grudge.

A streak of purple, and then Mrs. Pillsbury yelps. "What… what…" Mrs. Pillsbury gasps, looking around frantically.

Mercedes' eyes bug out. The magnet next to her name… isn't there anymore. In fact, Mrs. Pillsbury is now holding that magnet in her hand.

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><p>Mercedes cries into her pillow. Mrs. Pillsbury called her parents, who came and picked her up. And after they talked to her for what seemed like forever, they grounded her and sent her up to her room without dessert.<p>

Worst day of her life.

And it's all because of stupid Matt and stupid Mrs. Pillsbury.

And that stupid purple magnet that flew. The one that beaned Mrs. Pillsbury on the forehead and left a red, square-shaped mark.

The one that obeyed her command.

* * *

><p>"Mommy, can I please have that necklace?"<p>

Mommy barely glances over the glass case. "I'm sorry, honey, I didn't bring my money today."

Mercedes tugs on her mother's fingers, her hands still not large enough to grasp an adult palm firmly. "Then why don't you just use that plastic card to get it for free?" she whines.

Mommy laughs. "Hon, I don't like to use that plastic card often. We only save it for special occasions. Like when we go out to dinner." She pats Mercedes on the head. "Or ice cream."

"But it's too cold for ice cream," Mercedes argues. She eyes the motionless necklace again, hanging there from two hooks to display its beautiful string of purple jewels. "Please Mommy, I really, really want it!"

"I'm sorry, Mercedes," Mommy sighs. "Not now."

"No! I want it now!"

"We can't afford it now," Mommy states, walking away from the display case. "Come along, Mercedes. Daddy and Amber are waiting for us."

Mercedes sits down in front of the case. "No! I want it right now!" she wails. If she doesn't get it now, she'll never get it. Her parents will keep putting it off, and then Amber will ask for something and they'll get it for her right away. It always happens that way.

Mommy tries to pull her up, but Mercedes sits her butt on the floor and refuses to move. "Nooooo! I want the necklace! Please, Mommy, I just want the necklace! Please please please—" With every please, Mercedes bounces on the floor, trying to drag her mother down.

"Mercedes, you are being a very bad girl," Mommy says sternly.

"No, I just want the purple necklace," Mercedes cries, bouncing one last time. "PLEASE."

The clink of jewelry. Mercedes' head shoots up and locks onto the display case. Inside, earrings and bracelets rock, as if somebody had taken the entire case and shaken it up.

But they're not swinging naturally. Some hang still, undisturbed, but others—like her favorite necklace—seem to be trying to fling themselves off their hooks at her. An anklet flips off its hook and hits the glass, where it stays there.

"What… what's going on?"

Mercedes glances up at her mother and freezes. Fear is plastered all over her mother's face. She holds her hoop earrings in each hand; when she releases one, instead of swinging freely under gravity, it is pulled straight down and tenses.

Something skitters behind the floor behind her. Mercedes turns around—little bits of scrap metal like paperclips and bobby pins and staples scuttle towards her from their hiding places under benches and in dusty corners.

"Mommy, what's happening?" Mercedes asks frantically from her position on the floor. But Mommy is backing away from her slowly, her hands still scooped around her hoop earrings.

The display case above her clinks again. More jewelry is being drawn off their hooks and hits the glass with dull thuds. Nearby pedestrians are starting to notice. A cell phone clatters to the floor and scoots towards her. Mercedes crawls towards her only known sanctuary: "Mommy!"

Mommy snaps out of her stupor. She hurriedly takes off her earrings and drops them to the floor, where they also begin to skate along the tiles towards Mercedes—but then her mother has her in full embrace, cooing softly as she rocks her daughter back and forth. "It's going to be okay, hon," Mommy whispers. Mercedes buries her head in her mother's shoulder and blocks out everything else: the tinkling of scrap metal drawn on invisible strings, the gasps of people, the clanging of jewelry in the store behind her throwing itself to the floor.

In her mother's arms, Mercedes is perfectly safe. By the time everything stops moving, she's fallen asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Kurt Corcoran<strong>

* * *

><p>It's been almost six months since Kurt first came to live at Elgen. Every morning, he wakes up and does some simple exercises while hooked up to the machines, then hops in the car with Will, who drives him to elementary school. Will said it was okay to lie about his age and say he's one year older, so to everybody in his first grade class, he's six. He's definitely smarter than anybody in his class, and they all admire him for it. Nobody bullies him, ever, because his escort stands in the back of the room to protect him at all times.<p>

After school, Will takes him to the zoo, or the library, or the museum, or the aquarium, and teaches him stuff. Sometimes, Will even tells him to use his power to scare other people—not like screaming-in-fear scary, but more like nervous-paranoid scary. Kurt can do different levels of scary now, and it's all because Will taught him how to control his power.

Sometimes before dinner, like once a month, he talks to Mommy and gets to see videos of her singing and acting and dancing with other people, and she looks so happy. Even her hair is back to its bouncy brown curls, without any gray.

When night time comes around, Kurt gets lonely—even scared. It's then that Will, not Mommy, tucks him in and sits by his bed reading a book or working on a tablet computer until Kurt falls asleep.

Still, Kurt wants to play with other children. He doesn't miss Sugar or Azimio, but sometimes, when he gets in the car with Will to go to the flower gardens, Kurt looks wistfully out the window at the other children playing together.

So for his upcoming birthday, Kurt only has two wishes. Number one: for a pair of sensible heels, to go with his future wedding dress. And number two: for a sister. He's watched two girls in particular: Brittany and Heather. Heather seems to be younger than her sister Brittany, but she protects the older girl from hurting herself and patiently explains simple concepts. He's seen what they share: tight, unwavering love. They're part of a constant team, working together. Best friends don't always do that.

Will is completely serious when Kurt brings it up. "Of course, Kurt," Will answers. "We're looking for your sister even as we speak."

Kurt's mouth drops. "You mean I already have a sister?"

Will nods. "She's actually a fraternal twin; she was born at the same time you were. She was adopted by somebody else, though, and we don't know where they went."

Kurt takes a moment to process this. "So… I have a sister… but you don't know where she is?"

Will nods. "I'm sorry, Kurt. We're doing our best… but in the meantime, I would like you to meet a new friend."

Kurt's eyes light up. "Really? Who?"

A door opens, and an Elgen servant escorts a black girl to the table. Her hair is tied back in pigtails and nervousness radiates off her in waves that Kurt can feel across the room. Kurt looks into her eyes, then down at neck when something glints there.

"I really like your necklace," Kurt comments, giving her the same reassuring grin Will has mastered. It's beautiful: glittering silver with purple studs and a large, flat, crystal purple heart hanging from the center.

Another emotion wells up when he says that, and Kurt unconsciously reaches out to her. He reaches into her mind and does something he's never done before—he calms her down. He siphons the electricity from her mind, reducing the amount of firing synapses.

He can see it in her eyes; some twitching anxiety drains away, and she walks over to the other empty seat at the table.

"Mercedes, this is Kurt," Will introduces. "Kurt, Mercedes."

"Hi," the black girl says shyly, fingering the necklace.

Kurt grins back confidently. He can wait for his sister; Mercedes, on the other hand… "We're gonna be best friends."

* * *

><p><strong>Will Schuester<strong>

* * *

><p><span>Will's Observations<span>:

Mercedes:  
>- insecure and emotionally dependent. Responds well to kindness. Family history suggests neglect and slight favoritism of older sister.<br>- reserved and sensitive. Use gentle voice when speaking to her.  
>- power of material magnetism. Unable to consciously control intensity or appearance; tied to emotional stability.<br>- possible development of human magnetism? It's a stretch...  
>- strong emotional connection to music. Damn, she has a voice.<br>- strong emotional connection to necklace, a last memento from her mother. Good for emotional stability, but ties her to the outside world.

Kurt:  
>- used his power in initial interaction with Mercedes. Instead of amplification of fear, he inhibited. Further study of development.<br>- still emotionally connected to mother, though he considers Elgen as home.  
>- responded well to news of twin sister. Place tracker spiders on the internet for keywords "Berry", "Elgen", "Pasadena hospital", "birth records", etc.<br>- asked for a pair of "sensible" heels. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Another potential electrical child found in reports: boy who stabbed another child with nothing but his bare hands. Witnesses (who are all children) say the assailant's hand flashed white before he stabbed the victim. Doctors are stymied by the wound, which is thoroughly cauterized. Send lawyer to investigate.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Rant<em>

_Guess who the third child is? (Surprise! Another child will make an appearance... I wanna get all the Gleeks together ASAP!)_

_Some references:  
>- About Mercedes' older sister's name: the actress' name, the one who portrays Mercedes, is Amber. (In the Glee universe, Mercedes doesn't have a sister.)<br>- If you read this story the very first day I posted, you may have been confused this chapter. I meant to rename Hatch as Will, which I forgot to do when I initially posted this story. It's been fixed. Will is Elgen's representative man. Note that. Sorry!  
>- Kurt's twin sister is...<br>- Which means that Kurt's mom is..._

_Elgen Academy's Gleeks are just beginning to gather together... Reviews appreciated much!_

**Words: **2600  
><strong>Cameos: <strong>  
>~ Emma Pillsbury as Mercedes' first grade teacher. Her character on <em>Glee<em> seems more suited to dealing with children than with counseling crazy hormonal teenagers.  
>~ Matt, a speechless backup dancer from <em>Glee<em>'s first season, appears as just another classmate. He had maybe three lines for the entire season, and the actor quit the show precisely because of the lack of storylines given him. Too bad he didn't stick it out - look what happened to Mike Chang.


	3. Six Years Old

**Noah Puckerman**

* * *

><p>Puck cocks his arm back. Aims. Then he launches, throwing with all his might.<p>

The egg splats nicely on the side of the house with its peeling gray paint walls, a golden yellow stain surrounded by clear goo. More thuds follow as Puck's friends unleash their projectiles too, and eggs splatter against the sides of the house.

A glinting silver barrel sticks out of a second-story window. Puck barely has time to shout a warning before one of his friends screams in pain, clutching at his red-stained shirt.

"You bastards!" Lauren screams from her bedroom, unleashing a raging flurry of red paintballs upon the boys below. "Fry your eggs on this!"

Gradually, the pack breaks up, fleeing in all directions. "You didn't say McFattyPants Zizes had a gun!" Samuel accuses as he takes his friends and runs.

Puck snarls at Lauren's window, and he flings his last egg at her. He pumps his arm in victory when the egg explodes on the window pane, but then Lauren nails him with a red paintball straight to the heart. It knocks the breath out of him, but he manages to squeeze out a few choice words he heard from some construction workers before scampering away.

Well, that was a failure. It wasn't even fun. And worse, Lauren will probably tattle on him, and everything's gonna come down on his head. Even as a six-year old, Puck has built up quite a repertoire. He's the trouble child, the neighborhood hooligan. He's the one with a pack of boys at his command, mostly because he's bigger than all of them and will mostly likely beat their faces into a bloody pulp if they even look at him wrong.

He's top dog here.

* * *

><p>Ma is applying her makeup when he gets home. "Dinner's on the table, Noah," she calls as he pounds upstairs to his room. "I'm going to work."<p>

"Sure, ma," Puck shouts back down. With her tiny red dress, her super high heels, her stinky perfume, and her pasty makeup, Puck already knows what kind of work she's doing tonight. "I'll take care of Esther."

"That's my dear."

The moment the whine of the family car disappears down the street, though, Puck races outside. He knows what his ma does for a living and he knows without a doubt that he and Esther are not from the same daddy. If he can take care of himself without a dad…

Ten minutes later, he arrives at the clubhouse. A couple of the older pack members, including Samuel, are already there. Samuel's dreadlocks are tied back into a shaggy ponytail.

"Hey there, buddy," Samuel grins condescendingly.

"Hey there, pal," Puck snarls back. Samuel's at least eight years old, but he's so wiry that Puck could easily take him down. "Thanks for sticking around to finish the job."

"What job?" Samuel shrugs. "We never should have—"

"—Are you seriously saying we shouldn't have put Zizes McFattyPants back in her place?" Puck retorts. "After she humiliated half of you in arm-wrestling? She had it coming to her."

"She humiliated _you,_" Samuel corrects.

"And you," Puck reminds. "And you, and you, and half of you."

"She was prepared to whoop all our butts," Samuel argues. "We shouldn't have tried. She won and we lost and she knows it."

Puck knows that Samuel's right, but he can't back down. He _is_ the top dog, after all. "Aww, did the poor baby get a poor paintball bruise?" he croons mockingly. "Did you hafta go home to mommy and get a bandaid? Or did she just get mad at you for getting paint in your hair?"

Samuel flushes as red as the paint that is indeed stuck in his frizzy dreads. He changes the subject and pulls a cigarette from his paper bag. "Want a light?"

Puck smirks inwardly as he takes the peace offering, and they spend the next hour in smoky silence before running out to do something awesome, like throw the cat lady's bazillion cats off the roof of her house, or climb the trees in the park and pee on unsuspecting people.

* * *

><p>The first thing Lauren Zizes does Monday morning upon arriving to school is punch Puck in the face.<p>

Puck stumbles back, just a little shocked. A girl… just hit him.

That's not fair. You can't hit a girl back.

"Bitch!" Samuel calls. "You can't just walk up to the Puckerman and punch him and walk away."

"Watch me," Lauren taunts, whirling around and running towards the safety of the school.

* * *

><p>"You can't let her get away with that," Samuel goads Puck.<p>

"I'm not," Puck growls.

"Let's beat her up," Samuel whispers, cracking his knuckles.

"Screw you," Puck hisses. "You can't hit a girl. It's, like, in the rules of manhood."

"Dude, I swear, Zizes has balls bigger than your head," Samuel snorts.

"Noah? Samuel? Do you have something to share with the rest of the class?"

Puck rolls his eyes and stands up. "Lauren Zizes is a fatass," he shouts, writes his own name in his own wobbly writing on the board, and goes to sit in the time-out corner.

* * *

><p>After school, Puck and a couple other boys lie in wait for Zizes. They know that she usually walks past here and Puck ready to land a few blows to her body. She has plenty of cushion there, so maybe it won't hurt as bad. Maybe then, what he's about to do will only be a half-violation of the Code of Man.<p>

Sure enough, Zizes walks past. The boys spring into action, grabbing her backpack and yanking her through the bushes into the backyard of somebody's long deserted house. She screams and flails briefly, then whirls around and knocks a boy to the ground. With one side freed, she grabs the wrist of the other boy on her right and flips him over her shoulder onto his back. She shrugs off her backpack so they can't hold her, then drives her fist into the next boy so hard that he doesn't move afterward.

"Com'on!" she roars, her chest heaving. "Puckerman, man up and take me on without all your stupid sidekicks!"

Hands suddenly push Puck to the front lines, and within seconds the mass fight has organized itself into a one-on-one showdown, complete with a barrier of jeering boys.

_Shit_, Puck thinks. Zizes is like twice his size, and for all Puck's brute force, Zizes probably has more. His heart starts beating wildly. How is he supposed to take her on? He was going to have his supposed-friends hold her down while he punched her in the gut, but now—

_She's top-heavy,_ Puck formulates. _I go for her legs, take her down, and then keep her down. Everybody's happy._

Before he can chicken out of his own decision, he's flying at her legs.

He collides with them. And dammit, they're just as stocky as she is. She stumbles slightly, but adjusts herself and OH MY G—

She sits on him.

The jeering turns to laughter. Puck has never been so humiliated as he squirms under Zizes' McFattyPants' weight. She's so freakin' heavy!

"Take it back!" she screams into his face. "Take it back! Say I'm not a fatass!"

"Can't breathe…" Puck groans.

She leans over and jabs an elbow into his crotch. She just digs it in, grinds it in there, then lands a blow to his stomach. "Take it back or I'll smash your body flat and grind your balls to paste!"

Tears spring into Puck's eyes. He's top dog and he can't even prevent a fatass from flattening him into the ground. This is a terrible way to die.

He glances at Samuel, anybody for backup… they're all laughing at him. Nobody's willing to grab his hand and pull him out of this predicament. None of them are really his friends. He's all alone. He's going to die alone under the crushing weight of failure. His mind is buzzing frantically. Probably from lack of oxygen.

"Take it back!"

"No!" In a desperate last attempt, Puck stabs her in the side with two fingers. It's not even a punch; it's more like a two-fingered poke, and his fingers sink into her flabby side. It has absolutely no effect. He's going to die—

Lauren screams. There is too much pain in her scream. She rolls off of him, holding her side and screaming continuously. There's… there's…

There's blood seeping between her fingers.

* * *

><p>"Tons of eyewitnesses, and nobody will say how they managed to burn a two-inch-deep hole in a seven-year's torso," the detective snaps. "All we can really conclude is that this twerp somehow got access to a welding torch…"<p>

Puck looks down at his hands. Did he really… did he stab Lauren? With his bare fingers?

No. He felt something when he stabbed her. His mind had been buzzing unbearably, so much that he couldn't hear anything else. And when he'd stabbed her, that buzzing sensation had immediately channeled itself down through his torso, through his arm… and out through his fingers?

The door to the interrogating room opens, and another man—not a police officer, not the detective, but just a young-ish man with curly hair and an ugly sweater vest steps through.

"Who are you?" Puck asks dully.

"It doesn't matter who I am," the man replies. "What matters is… who are _you_?"

* * *

><p><strong>Sam Evans<strong>

* * *

><p>Sam's eyes dart excitedly around the shopping mall. Everybody has a light. Everybody carries a light in their head, and everybody's is different. He doesn't know how—maybe it's the special fizzle, or sparkles, or the size or the shape or the intensity of the firing. But by their characteristics, Sam can recognize and remember people. It doesn't matter if he's only seen them once or known them forever; if he commits them to memory, Sam can tell who they are.<p>

But today, he sees something different. One boy. And his light is HUGE.

It's sparkly and glittery and fizzy and explodes violently every couple seconds. And what's even weirder, something that Sam's never ever seen, is that bolts shoot _out_ of the boy's head all the time. Little white wisps of electricity brush against other people's lights. Sam is instantly attracted to him, and he giggles when the boy's eyes meet his and the boy touches him with soft lightning too.

"You're brighter than all the rest," he tells the boy excitedly. "What's your name?"

The boy looks at him in surprise. "What?"

"I'm Sam," Sam says enthusiastically, staring at the boy's light. It's even bigger up close. "What's your name?"

The boy probes his head again with the soft lightning; Sam giggles, not because he feels anything, but because it's just… weird. And funny. Apparently satisfied that Sam isn't bad, the boy replies, "Kurt."

"Kurt… that's a pretty name," Sam grins. "And your light is really pretty. And big. It's like twice as big as anybody else's."

Kurt looks at his uncertainly. "What do you mean by lights?"

Sam motions around his head. "Like the bright lights in everybody's heads. Yours is really big. Oo, and so is hers!" He points at a black girl with a super-bright light. Little tendrils of electricity occasionally spiral around her head in never-ending circles.

Kurt suddenly grabs his hand, and Sam likes how it feels—tiny and soft and delicate, but with a firm grip. "I want you to meet my friends," Kurt says excitedly. And he pulls Sam towards the black girl and a curly-haired, ugly sweater-vested man.

* * *

><p><strong>Mercedes Jones<strong>

* * *

><p>Mercedes fingers her necklace. She always wears it, only taking it off to shower or swim. It's big and clunky and sometimes the crystal heart whacks Kurt in the face if she turns too suddenly, but Mercedes keeps it on because it reminds her of her mommy. Of her tight embrace and soothing words, rocking her to sleep while this scary new power activates around her.<p>

Her power's not so scary now. Not when Kurt is with her. He always seems to have a calming presence around him and she feels so much better when he's around. Will has them exercise together in the mornings before second grade, and then afterwards they go swimming at the local pool or run through the tree gardens and feed the ducks or go shopping. As long as he's there, Mercedes feels perfectly okay.

Today, for some reason, Will brought them home directly after school and took Sam off on his own. No matter, though; with Kurt around, Mercedes can always find something fun to do. They settle upon a tea party in the common room, pulling cushions off the couch to form the boundaries of their house and ringing up the servants to bring real chocolate cookies and some herbal tea, with lots of milk and sugar cubes. The stuffed animals are soon circled around the table, and Kurt disappears into his room to scavenge for something extra special when an unexpected guest drops in.

"What the hell is this?"

Mercedes glances up. Standing in the doorway of the common room is a tanned boy who's way bigger than she is; his head is shaved into a Mohawk and his limbs show the scars and scabs of rough play over muscles. His stance, his attitude, his eyes, just everything about him is so forward and aggressive and mean. Mercedes clutches at her necklace in fright.

Where's Kurt?

"What is this place? I don't want to be here!" The boy turns around, only to find that the door is closed behind him. "Dammit."

Mercedes gathers her stuffed animals closer to her and backs into the seat cushions behind her.

"Who are you?" the boy growls, advancing on her.

"M-M-Mercedes," she chokes out. "Please don't hurt me."

Something lights up in the boy's eyes: the need to assert power. She'd seen it too many times in Amber's eyes when she felt that Mercedes had overstepped her bounds and needed to be shown her place again.

"What is this place?"

"Elgen Academy."

"No way, monkeybutt. That's what they all said." He kicks over the cushions across from Mercedes, destroying their boundary. He walks all the way up to the table full of treats, leering at Mercedes. "What are we here for? Is this some sort of rehab?"

Mercedes' heart is flooded with relief when Kurt emerges from the hallway leading to the sleeping quarters, a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints held in his hands. He instantly notices the newcomer, and his eyes flick to Mercedes, then back to the boy again. "Who are you?" Kurt asks dangerously.

The boy's eyes glint again. "I'm the one asking the questions."

Kurt's brow creases. "No you're not," he retorts. "This is my and Mercedes' house. We were about to have tea."

Mercedes' heart wells with gratitude and maybe a little adoration. _Go Kurt! Tell him like it is._

"Oh, this?" the boy motions at the table next to him. Casually, he kicks it over, spilling warm tea and crackers over their stuffed animals. And all over her. She blinks in shock as the milk soaks into her pants.

A lot of different things happen at once. One second, the boy is smirking; then he's on his knees, holding his chest and gasping silently for air. Kurt's face is a mask of shock; then it's righteous anger, defending his and Mercedes' honor. The black tea soaks into the white stuffed animals' fur, staining it brown. Mercedes begins to wail, and metal objects around the room shudder and inch closer.

Which is when Will walks into the room.

* * *

><p><strong>Kurt Corcoran<strong>

* * *

><p>"That was not quite the introduction I was aiming for," Will mutters. "I leave you kids unsupervised for an hour…"<p>

Kurt stares at his brand-new sneakers in great interest. These ones have pink laces. Before Puck and Sam came, Kurt was really proud of them. Now that the other boys are here, though, Kurt's not so sure.

"Nevertheless, Kurt… Kurt, look at me."

Kurt looks up. His face is level with Will's, as it's always been. Whenever they talk, Will always makes the effort of talking face-to-face. Kurt feels a little more grown-up that way.

"Kurt, I want to emphasize that you are to never,_ ever_ use your powers to hurt your family."

"But he isn't in my family," Kurt states flatly.

"Yes he is," Will says firmly. "You're my family, and Puck is my family too. We all live together, right? We're all a big family."

Kurt can't find any way to argue against this. "But why?" Kurt whines.

"Why what?"

"Why is he in our family?"

"Because," Will smiles, putting his large hand on Kurt's shoulder, "Puck is special. Just like you, and just like Mercedes and Sam. You four are different; you are the diamonds in the rough. You," he taps Kurt on the nose, "are one in a million. No, one in a billion. And so is Mercedes, and so is Sam, and so is Puck."

"All of us?" Kurt asks, shocked.

Will nods solemnly. "All four of you. And there are seventeen others somewhere out there, including your twin sister. We're looking for all of them right now."

Kurt considers this. "Can you find them any faster?"

"Yes," Will answers. "But only with your help. Yours, and Sam's and Mercedes' and Puck's. We're all going to work together to unite our family." Will holds out his pinkie. "Do I have your promise?"

Kurt immediately links his tiny pinkie in Will's large one. "I promise."

* * *

><p><strong>Will Schuester<strong>

* * *

><p><span>Will's Observations<span>:

Noah Puckerman:  
>- adamantly prefers to be called Puck<br>- mother is a call girl with the pseudonym of Holly Holiday (damn she's fine.) She does appear to care for Puck and is very distressed; I may have to... erm... pay her a visit to... ahem... explain some things.  
>- aggressive, dominant, and power hungry. Had a "pack" in his neighborhood; known as the trouble child<br>- disasterous initial interaction with the other kids. From now on, be sure to supervise ALL initial interactions.  
>- unable to call power out again. Possibly linked to powerful negative emotions? From the medical reports, the victim's wound was thoroughly cauterized. Extreme heat production?<br>- strong will. Able to endure and deal with stress. Start him on protein diet and weight training.

Sam Evans:  
>- social butterfly, extroverted, limitless energy, constantly happy. It doesn't take much to make this kid happy.<br>- touchy-feely kid. Hug him often.  
>- family resists letting him stay. Deal with them later.<br>- ability to detect electrical activity in humans. Describes them as "big bright lights." Sometimes with adjectives like "sparkly."  
>- even more interestingly, can describe the behavior of the other electrical children:<br>- Kurt's big bright light touches other people's big bright lights with invisible lightning. Perhaps he is able to sample other brains' electrical activities and interpret/manipulate it as if it were his own.  
>- There are rings of electricity around Mercedes' body. Whenever she pulls stuff towards her, the circles spiral in the direction of the object. Assuming that these rings are Mercedes' own electrical field, it seems as if she can manipulate her own electrical field to create and manipulate a magnetic field.<br>- Puck's big bright light looks hot. Sam noted that there seem to be paths running from his big bright light throughout his body, down to his hands and feet. Research paths of chi.  
>- Sam's power is extremely valuable - already has found one other "big bright light" during his first flight over downtown Pasadena with Bryan Ryan.<br>- easily made friends with Mercedes, Kurt, and Puck, despite the latter's unwillingness.  
>- did I mention he was a touchy-feely kiddo? Take him to the petting zoo or something.<p>

I need another name than "big bright lights." Tell public relations to come up with a better name.

Mercedes Jones:  
>- very reliant on Kurt, though expresses positive emotions towards Sam. Extremely intimidated by Puck.<br>- side note: may have feelings for Kurt. Observe a little more closely.  
>- send faux government activity report to parents.<br>- able to summon her power willfully now, though response to negative emotions still trumps everything. Keep Kurt's company for his calming presence.  
>- human magnetism possibility hasn't panned out.<p>

Kurt Corcoran:  
>- explained the concept of family to Kurt. He accepted it readily, without mention of his mother.<br>- Shelby Corcoran is making a career for herself on Broadway, starring in a production called _Rent_.  
>- asked about his twin sister again - and we're still nowhere closer to finding the Berry couple who adopted her.<br>- his range of manipulable emotions has expanded from fear; within a couple weeks of time around Puck, Kurt is able to amplify and diminish rage. He's currently using that calming effect on Puck as well as Mercedes.  
>- oblivious to Mercedes' admiration. Thinks they're just best friends.<br>- allowed Sam to hold his hand. I'm not going to look too deeply in this.

As discovered by Sam, another electrical child has been found. Bryan Ryan staked out the coordinates; the child appears to have just been in a traffic accident and is currently in critical care. Send representatives to talk to parents about special medical treatment.

Police scans also report strange electrical outbursts in Chapman Woods, Pasadena. Send agents to investigate.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Rant<em>

_So, just to clarify on some things: Rachel is Kurt's sister and Shelby is their mother. Rachel was adopted by her gay dads while Shelby kept Kurt for herself (though keeping Kurt inhibited Shelby's career). Mercedes' parents think she's at a top secret government institute getting treatment for her "condition." Puck's mother is Holly Holiday! And about Will and Elgen - are they really a benevolent company gathering electrical children for their protection, or is there something deeper going on?_

_These chapters are just going to get longer and longer and looooonger as more Gleeks arrive at Elgen because EVERYBODY gets a point of view. My outline gets crazy complex later on; there's at least 15 chapters, in which at least one Gleek joins the family at Elgen. So that's the basic rundown. I don't hear any complaining :)_

**Words: **4000**  
><strong>**New additions to the family: **Puck, Sam  
><strong>Cameos:<br>**~ Lauren Zizes stars as Puck's nemesis.  
>~ Samuel, Puck's friend, is based off Samuel Larsen, the co-winner of the <em>Glee Project<em>. He will be playing Puck's cousin in Episode 11 or so.  
>~ Holly Holiday appears as Puck's mom. Maybe she'll make later appearances; I'm still toying with the idea.<br>**Total POVs:** Kurt, Mercedes, Sam, Puck, Will


	4. Seven Years Old

**Finn Hudson**

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you don't want to play in the water, sweetie?"<p>

Finn shakes his head stubbornly. "I don't like water."

Mother sighs and returns to her position sunning beneath the beach umbrella. Finn makes himself comfortable playing with the sand on the beach as his older sisters Corrie and Monty dart back and forth between the waves, splashing each other and laughing gleefully. Nearby, a lifeguard keeps watch of dozens of other beach goers.

He's the only kid sitting on the beach. The sun is so hot and Finn's overheating. The water looks so cool, but Finn knows the moment he immerses himself in liquid, the lightning in his body will slip through his tight mental blocks and surge over his body. Every time he gets too wet, the electricity overwhelms him. It's this inner demon, screaming and trying to claw itself out of his body, and the only way he can keep it in is through extreme force of will and by keeping himself dry.

It's a lot for a seven-year old to live with, but Finn has managed to survive this far.

He hasn't had a proper wash in maybe two years or so. At first, Mom tried to get him to at least take showers, or run through the sprinkler, or at least wash his hands. But she was never touching him at the time, and she never saw the little blue bolts arc across the wet surfaces of his body. And she never heard his yelps of pain because they never got past his teeth. Finn would just dry off his body or his hands and keep calm, so Mom or Monty or Corrie wouldn't know that anything was wrong. He'd push and pull and shove the thunder demon underneath his iron will and hope it stayed there when he locked the door.

So he plays with the dry sand, sifting it between his fingers until there's nothing left.

* * *

><p>He's concentrating, but the thunder demon is restless. It stirs in discontent underneath his skin, longing to be released.<p>

"…Finn?"

Finn barely hears Mom calling him. He barely looks up. But he tries. His concentration slips, and the thunder demon roars.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I'm not feeling so good."

Mom leans forward, ready to put her hand on Finn's forehead. Finn recoils; he might shock her.

"I'm just going to bed," Finn mutters, pushing himself away from the dinner table.

"Sit back down!" twelve-year old Corrie demands. "Mom, he's just trying to avoid my meatloaf!"

"Finn, if you don't eat this now," Monty adds pleadingly, "We'll be eating this for leftovers… in two weeks."

Corrie smacks her upside the head, and in the sister squabble that follows, Finn disappears into his room.

* * *

><p>It's raining. Finn's so terrified he refuses to go outside, even wrapped up in two rain jackets with an umbrella. Eventually, Corrie and Monty both miss the bus and Mom has to drive all of them to school. She drives right up to the school's front steps so Finn can make a dash for the doors.<p>

When the torrential downpour continues even after school, Finn calls Mom and she picks him up.

* * *

><p>Finn walks into the forest, cautiously making sure nobody's following him. It's only a couple hundred feet into the thicket of trees behind his house, but it's the most private, isolated place he can think of.<p>

The thunder demon is restless. It's been suppressed for too long.

Soon enough, Finn arrives at the small, burnt-out clearing. The demon inside of him recognizes the spot and surges to the surface. Finn moans in just a little pain—it's like a small tinkling over the surface of his skin, and then Finn falls to his knees and thrusts his palms into the air and lets go with a torrent of blue electricity arcing into the clear night sky.

* * *

><p>Mom keeps looking at Finn strangely. Finn just puts his head down and continues life, suppressing his inner demon.<p>

He can't concentrate on anything. It insists on leaping out of him. It's too strong. Sooner or later he'll slip up and the demon will tear loose and destroy everybody he loves—Mom and the creaky old house they saved up to get and Corrie and Monty and all their clothes and their secret stashes of money and Monty's special magazines…

Finn puts his head down, closes his eyes, and focuses on pushing it down. He can't let it take over his life.

* * *

><p>It's getting harder. It's been almost two and a half years since this demon came to live in Finn. Since he stopped taking baths. He cleans himself with baby wipes, but they don't cover everything. But even now the demon is getting stronger, and Finn's heading out to the forest clearing more often to release himself.<p>

Sweet, sweet release.

He's panting on his hands and knees, having just drained himself of most of the thunder demon's power. It's still settled in his heart, generating more electricity that he'll have to get rid of later, but for now, it's at controllable levels. He can probably go another couple days before he has to come back here.

A twig snaps, and Finn whirls around. Now that he's just released, he can afford to concentrate on multiple things at once. Like people sneaking up behind him. His mind goes crazy with fear—what if somebody finds out? Will they tie him down and see what's wrong with him? Will they brand him a freak? Are they going to dissect him?

But the people that step out of the trees… are not what he's expecting. It's a man with a small boy. The minute Finn's eyes land on the boy, his mind begins to relax.

It feels so good to relax. Finn realizes just how tense he's been for the past couple years. Relaxing feels so—

Crackling blue lightning ripples across his torso, and Finn's defenses snap back up again. No, this is why he can't relax. Because every single time…

"We can help you," the man calls from across the clearing. "We know what you're going through, and we can help."

Finn glances warily at the man and the boy. The boy is hiding slightly behind the man, but his eyes are full of understanding. It's strange, but Finn feels like he can trust this boy.

But still. How do these people know…?

"Finn, we've been looking for you for a long time," the man continues. "There are more people like you at Elgen Academy. We can help you, if you're willing to come with us."

"How… how do you know my name?"

"We asked your mother," the man replies simply.

"Wha… what?"

"I've talked to your mother about… your attention problem. We at Elgen would be happy to help you… gain mastery over yourself. Your attention. Your whole body. We can help you with that."

* * *

><p><strong>Noah Puckerman<strong>

* * *

><p>After seven months of Elgen, and Puck is bored. Kurt and Mercedes are always running off and having their tea parties and building houses out of seat cushions and drawing pictures of the animals they saw at the zoo. And Schue always takes Sam out on missions, flying him around in a little airplane. Secretly, Puck's jealous; why can't Schue take him out to do stuff? So what if Sam can see pretty lights in people's heads? Puck has freakin' balls of pure electricity so hot that he can burn through (almost) anything. After four months, Puck can make enough heat to cut through plastic. It takes a bit of effort to keep it up, but he can do it.<p>

Which is totally awesome. Puck can burn stuff. So why does Sam get so much attention?

Though that's not really true—Schue might take Sam on plane rides, but he takes Kurt out a lot too and helps Mercedes when she trains. And maybe one out of three times, it turns out Schue was watching Puck, and Schue rewards Puck with ice cream or something. The scientists are trying different diet combinations for each of them, and Puck's working on a protein diet and limited sugar.

The only bad thing about this Elgen place is that Puck has no pack. He remembers seven months ago—it almost seems like another life—in his old neighborhood, the dark, dirty one with the rundown houses and peeling paint walls… he'd been the leader of a fearless band of boys, going on adventures and tearing down stuff. Maybe those boys weren't his friends—Puck still remembers the bitter betrayal of Samuel laughing and pointing as Lauren continued to grind Puck into the dust. But they were people Puck was in charge of. Here, Puck only has Sam, and he's never here. And Kurt is a boy, but he acts like a girl, dresses like a girl, plays like a girl, talks like a girl, squeals like a girl. And like most little girls, Kurt avoids Puck like the plague.

Seven months ago, Puck would have bullied the crap out of Kurt for being such a wuss —but Schue took him aside one day and made it clear that people are the way they are, that it's perfectly okay, and it is unacceptable to make fun of them for it. When Schue talks to him, though, he talks to him like he's an adult, and it makes Puck listen up (even if he doesn't ever listen to anybody, ever, because nobody's ever gonna tell him what to do.)

It's another week and Sam's out for the day again. Kurt and Mercedes are out visiting the flower gardens, so Puck is taking advantage of the privacy to blast the surround sound system, choose some video games, and shoot up some Nazi zombies.

The door behind him opens, and two pairs of footsteps walk in. Puck knows instantly by the weight of the footsteps that one of them is Schue and the other… somebody else. Somebody small, but not petite like Kurt, not shy like Mercedes, not skippy like Sam.

Naw, this new kid is big, awkward, and clumsy. This all registers in the back of Puck's mind while he kills his 20th zombie in a row, never looking towards Schue.

"Puck," Schue says in his look-here-now voice. Puck immediately pauses and turns around.

The new boy next to Schue shuffles his feet. He has chin-length, dark brown hair, and his arms are so long there almost drag on the ground. Not really, but they're way too long to be normal.

"Puck, this is Finn. He's a part of the family now."

"Cool," Puck grins. "What's he do?"

"That's something we don't talk about," Schue says immediately, and Puck nods. "Now, why don't you two get acquainted?"

Puck waits until Schue leaves the room and closes the door. "What's your name?" he asks.

"Finn."

"I'm Puck."

Puck proceeds to ignore Finn for the next half hour.

"Can I play?" Finn asks timidly after a while.

"No." Puck laughs. "You know what you could do?"

"What?"

"Get me a bag of chips."

* * *

><p>Over the next few days, Puck is pulling all of Finn's strings. The other boy is perfectly compliant, doing anything Puck says. Just like his Puck's old system, except with only one person. Well, whatever. Schue says more special people are on their way. Puck will just tuck them underneath him and soon enough he'll have his own pack here at Elgen.<p>

The only thing he didn't take into account, though… are the other children. Puck finds Finn talking to Sam one day and immediately pulls him away. "Why are you talking to them?" he hisses.

"He's part of the family too, right?" Finn asks uncertainly.

"Well, he's never here…"

"I can hear you," Sam pouts from two feet away. "And I am so part of the family. Mr. Schue just sends me out a lot to look for other Glows."

Finn cocks his head in confusion. "Huh?"

"Other people with super-bright lights in their heads!" Sam exclaims. "It's harder at nighttime because everybody's got the lights on and there's so much electricity everywhere. But whenever it's cloudy, I can see really the big bright lights even if I'm really far away. They look like little glowing lights when I'm up in the sky. So that's why Mr. Bryan Ryan is always flying me around town, to see if I can find anymore Glows."

Puck doesn't really understand a lot of what Sam says, so he settles for "Hmph" and pulling Finn away. Besides, he really doesn't have a lot to say that would convince Finn of anything.

But he can say something to convince Sam to bug off.

"You suck, trouty-mouth!"

* * *

><p>Then, a couple days later, Puck finds Finn drinking lemonade with Kurt, Sam, Mercedes. Freakin' drinking lemonade with all their stupid stuffed animals. "Finn!" Puck shouts angrily.<p>

Finn looks at Puck. The ever-present look of confusion is still scrawled all over his face, but there's defiance in his eyes. "Huh?"

"What the hell are you doing talking to—"

"They're my friends," Finn interrupts. "Besides, Kurt has really good cookies."

"Yeah, Kurt's my friend too, but—"

"Yeah right," Kurt snorts. "In five days, Finn's talked to me more times than you've ever done in seven months."

Puck makes sure that Schue isn't listening, then tries a different tactic. "Yeah, Finn, but Kurt's… Kurt's a _girl_."

Finn's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "What?"

"I am not!" Kurt retorts furiously.

"Yeah!" Sam defends. "Just because he likes pink, doesn't mean he's a girl! I like pink too!"

Puck almost collapses under the pressure of four pairs of eyes boring into him. "Well, Kurt's got at least three pairs of high heels in his closet!"

Dead silence. Mercedes glances fearfully at Kurt. "Oh no," she whimpers.

"What were you doing in _my _closet?" Kurt shrieks, his voice briefly going supersonic. "What were you doing in my _room_?"

Puck ignores this last question, instead sneering at Finn. "Are you going to marry him? He's the perfect girl for you, Finn, right? That's why you can't stop talking to him!"

Finn backpedals. "What are you talking about?"

"You just want to take Kurt in your arms and… and… you just want to take him!"

From the blank look in everybody's eyes, Puck deduces that they don't quite know the connotations of "taking" somebody.

Kurt pouts. "We're just having tea, Puck! You're just jealous that we're eating cookies without you!"

Mercedes suddenly pipes up. "No! Puck's jealous because he wants Finn all to himself!"

Puck gasps. _That_ is unacceptable: Puck is _not_ Kurt. He's a guy. Not a girl. And he definitely doesn't like Finn like _that_. He feints at Kurt and Mercedes, his fist threatening. Kurt flinches and shrieks; Mercedes dives under the seat cushions; and Sam plants himself protectively in front of Mercedes. But before Puck can take another step forward, Finn has imposed himself between them. With all his clumsy strength and gangly limbs, Finn shoves Puck to the floor.

Puck lets a cuss word slip out as he scrambles back to his feet. "What the hell, Finn? You're supposed to be my buddy!"

"Not when you're trying to hurt my friends," Finn growls.

Puck's lips curl into a snarl. "You're asking for it, buddy." And he rushes Finn.

Stars explode across his vision. Puck blinks his eyes. The floor. He's looking at the floor. Finn just knocked him down.

"The only thing I'm asking for," Finn says plaintively, his audacity suddenly gone, "is that I can be friends with whoever. Kurt, Sam, Mercedes. You. …Why can't we just all be friends?"

Puck snorts. There's… there's no way he's going to associate with these losers. Screw this Elgen place; if they're not going to listen to him, he might as well not listen to them. He's always been top dog. If that's not going to happen here, he might as well go back. Even if his old neighborhood is like a bazillion times poorer than Elgen is. This place is a ridiculously rich paradise.

Before his ire can really reach its peak, though, a calm feeling settles over him. Even though he wants to be angry, he just can't muster the feeling. The buzzing feeling in his head and in the palms of his hands die away, and with it drains his pride. This place _is_ really cool. He'd be an idiot to leave and go back to his old neighborhood. Maybe… maybe he doesn't have to be the one in charge. It's less stressful, and the blame won't land on him all the time. If that's what it takes to stay here… maybe Puck can try taking over later. He'll make friends with Kurt and Mercedes and then, when he's secured all their trust, he'll work on winning them over as well.

Yeah. That's how it'll go.

Finn's offering him a hand. What… but… Finn wants to help him back up?

Puck takes Finn's hand and grips it firmly.

* * *

><p><strong>Sam Evans<strong>

* * *

><p>This is the coolest adventure in Sam's (short) life!<p>

Every day, he gets to hop in a plane and talk to Mr. Bryan Ryan and learn about the plane controls and lean out the plane window and feel the wind in his face and look for any Glows. This is his twenty-sixth flight, and he's already found one! Right in the neighborhood where Kurt used to live, Mr. Will tells Sam. Mr. Will says that before Sam came along, Elgen didn't have very many ways of finding people with big bright lights like him.

Sam calls those people "Glows". When Mr. Will had asked Sam why he called them Glows, Sam explained that everybody has a light in their head, even Mr. Will and Mr. Bryan Ryan. But Kurt and Mercedes and Finn and Puck have really big bright lights, and Sam can tone out everybody else's lights so that only the big bright lights remain in Sam's field of vision. Only, because this is Sam's "dimmed-down" mode, the big bright lights aren't so bright anymore—they're just glowy. So Sam calls them Glows.

"Did you make up that name when you saw Kurt at the mall?" Mr. Will had asked.

"No. I saw my first big bright light at a car accident. A boy and his mom. The boy had blood all over his body. But his light was huge. And everybody else's lights just sort of faded away until all I could see was his Glow."

So Mr. Will decided to use that name too. It makes Sam proud that Mr. Will is using the name Sam came up with.

"Mr. Bryan Ryan?"

"For the last time, kid, just call me Bryan."

Mr. Bryan Ryan is really cool. He can fly an airplane, he can do magic tricks, and he always has itchy blond hair on his chin that Sam wants to touch.

Sam points. Mr. Bryan Ryan bats his hand away, thinking that Sam wants to touch his scratchy chin hair, but Sam insists, "No, really! I think I see something down there."

Mr. Bryan Ryan nods and swoops down. Sam makes sure his harness is attached and leans out the window for a better look, without any glass in the way.

The houses and streets flash by, but it's enough for Sam to spot the Glow—bright, strong, and very familiar.

Sam remembers. It's the boy from the car accident.

* * *

><p><strong>Mercedes Jones<strong>

* * *

><p>Mercedes might have a little girl crush on Kurt. She just really, really likes him.<p>

It's just… Kurt makes her feel so much more at ease. From the first time they met, Kurt just exuded an air of peace. And they have so much in common. They love the same things. He's perfect for her, and she's perfect for him. They were meant to be together.

That's why Mercedes is so stung when Kurt suddenly begins hanging out with Finn a lot more.

Still, she carries on with life. She's still the perfect student here and does her work diligently; since the arrival of Finn, a private tutor comes and teaches all of them. Will still takes them on field trips—Sam chats excitedly and fills up the silence, Finn tags along, Kurt follows Finn around loyally, and Puck doesn't want to be left out, so they all spend at least some time together (personally, Mercedes could do without Puck). But Mercedes notices that Kurt's default buddy is now Finn and not Mercedes, and it makes her jealous. Like majorly jealous. Kurt was hers for two years, and Finn's only been here a month. Who is he to take Kurt away from her suddenly?

She trains alone now. Kurt has other things/people to occupy him, so Mercedes finds herself heading down to the training room more often alone than not. Will is still there as usual, and he coaches her through the steps: plant your feet, keep your stance, something about feeling for the waves of electricity around you and moving it around. Mercedes never noticed it until Sam told her, but it feels like there are invisible threads around her body. When she twists and pushes and aims that stuff around, she can use the magnetism thing to pull or push things towards her.

Afterwards, Will gets her a banana smoothie. Mercedes has an ion-rich diet, with plenty of calcium, potassium, and magnesium. Bananas = potassium. They also equal yummy. Mercedes sips at the drink absentmindedly.

"Something on your mind?"

Mercedes glances to the side, where Will's face is. It makes her feel a little weird that Will purposely chooses a lower seat so that she can look straight at his face instead of having to look up. It's also a little cool, though; it makes her feel more grown-up. "Kurt doesn't want to be my friend anymore," she states.

"Why do you think that?"

"He doesn't listen to me. He just wants to be with Finn all the time." Mercedes pouts. "We're supposed to be together."

"Oh?"

Mercedes doesn't want to explain herself, but Will asked… "We're perfect for each other. We both like clothes and jewelry and tea and stuffed animals and dressing up and flowers. He's a boy and I'm a girl; we should be together."

"Oh." This time, Will's tone of voice is different. A pause, and then Will speaks again, his voice firm. "Mercedes, did you know that boys can like boys too?"

"What?"

"Boys can like boys, and girls can like girls. TV doesn't like to show it much, but there are people out there that like both boys and girls."

"So… you're saying that… Kurt likes Finn?"

"No, I'm not saying that," Will amends hastily. "I'm just stating that Kurt likes boys, and maybe you shouldn't expect that you two are going to be together. You should ask him."

"But… but…"

Will puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder as various metal objects around the room begin to shake. Whenever she gets nervous, her magnetism likes to switch itself on. "Mercedes," he says calmly. "Kurt is your best friend, right?"

Mercedes nods numbly.

"This doesn't mean that you have to stop being best friends, okay? You're still Kurt's best friend, I'm sure. He just happens to like somebody else too."

Mercedes nods numbly.

She has tea with Sam instead. He's really nice and smiles a lot and makes Mercedes feel a little bit happier, but she's still really sad that Kurt's not here.

And neither are Kurt's special cookies. Mercedes really likes those Tagalongs.

* * *

><p><strong>Kurt Corcoran<strong>

* * *

><p>Kurt might have a little girl crush on Finn. He just really, really likes him.<p>

Finn is so big and strong. He has really long arms for a seven-year old and he looks better with shorter hair; Will had a servant cut his chin-length hair when he came to live at Elgen. And Finn's different. He isn't Puck, who's mean and pushes people around and wants his way with everything. And Mercedes is his best friend and they do everything together, but now that Finn's here, Kurt's noticed that she wants to be with him all the time and never leaves him alone, even when Kurt wants to be alone. Or with Finn.

So he sticks next to Finn and shares his special cookie stash with him and shows him how to do stuff. Even if he is a little smelly and has a constant scared-bunny look. Kurt thinks it's a little cute, and just a goofy smile from Finn makes Kurt feel all happy inside.

"Has Will showed you the training room yet?" Kurt squeaks cheerfully as he bounces down the hallways.

Finn shakes his head, accidentally tripping over his own feet. "He says that the scientist people are still making special things for me. For my power. It's… it's too powerful."

"Really? What kind of power do you have?"

"I thought Will said we're not supposed to talk about it."

"Okay, then it'll be our secret," Kurt grins happily. "I'll tell you about my power if you tell me. Here, I'll even show you."

"No," Finn says frantically, backpedaling, but Kurt catches his arm.

The moment Kurt's fingers close around Finn's wrist, though, a blue bolt of electricity jumps from Finn to Kurt. It startles him more than anything.

"I'm sorry, did I hurt you?" Finn cries, but Kurt just shakes it off.

"It's fine," Kurt says, eager to keep on the conversation. "Is that it? You have blue electricity?"

Finn shakes his head. "Uhhh… well, what's yours?"

"I… here, let me show you. …Mine doesn't hurt," Kurt adds when Finn flinches. He puts his fingers on Finn's temples for dramatic effect. Finn's eyes dart back and forth, and Kurt can sense the mounting uncertainty… but no fear, and there's a little bit of trust thrown in there that makes Kurt happy. So he stares into Finn's eyes—bright and hopeful and beautiful—and connects. He really connects.

He can see into Finn's eyes. He can see Finn. Kurt feels a moment of exhilaration as he _sees_ Finn for everything he is.

And then _everything_ hits Kurt like a ton of bricks. All of Finn's discomforts and his pain and his inner demons. Or what Finn views as his inner enemy—the thunder demon struggling for domination, trying to shove Finn aside and take control and unleash thousands of volts of electricity. And now that Kurt's torn down those walls, Finn can't keep it under control anymore. It's building and boiling and it's going to explode and Kurt can't push it down and Finn is screaming—

Arms wrap around his torso and yank him back. Kurt shrieks a little as they wrap around him and swivel him around. Something explodes behind him, but Kurt can't see because there's a body in his way. Kurt can only bury his head into Will's chest as Finn conducts a torrent of brilliant electric bolts into the wall. A couple thuds, a high-pitched whistle; then Finn groans, and a moment later, the sound of a body hitting the floor.

"Kurt. Are you hurt?"

Kurt begins to cry. He didn't mean to hurt Finn, or anybody else. This wasn't supposed to happen!

Will gets to his feet, still carrying Kurt. Hurried footsteps bear him away. Before they turn a corner, though, Kurt catches a glimpse of Finn: lying prone on the ground, a dart sticking out of his neck. Smoke everywhere, alarms going off, servants touching Finn's body with rubber equipment, a huge hole blasted in the wall.

And then Will ducks into the nurse's station, and there are people all over him and he doesn't even notice Nurse Beiste sticking a needle in his arm and everything goes dark.

* * *

><p>"What did I say about not using your powers on the family without supervision?"<p>

Kurt stares at his pink blankets. "Not to use them ever."

"No, I didn't say that. I said not to use them on the family, unless I or the doctor tells you to."

Kurt doesn't remember that last part, but he's too wracked with guilt to contest this.

"Kurt, there are a lot of things in the world that you don't know," Will says. "I'm training you to become responsible on your own, to make your own decisions. But for now, you are still seven years old, and there are people are older and know more about the world than you do. They will tell you where and when you can use your power so that it does good for everybody involved, instead of hurting them. Are you listening?"

Kurt nods instantly. "Yes sir."

Will continues. "We're a family, and there are no lies within the family. Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Kurt bites his lip nervously; he can't lie to Will, but it's always hard to confess. "I've… I've been calming Mercedes down. Ever… ever since I met her, actually. And Puck. I've been calming them down."

Will nods in understanding, and Kurt feels a flood of relief. "I can see why you do it. You think it helps them—Puck's always mad and Mercedes' always scared."

Kurt nods; of course he's helping them. He's felt Puck's constant frustration and Mercedes' nervousness, so he help them by toning it down.

"So what happens when you're not there? What happens when you're not calming them down?"

Kurt blinks.

"When you're not there, Mercedes becomes very insecure. She is familiar enough with the family to not be frightened, but she's exceptionally jumpy and her power doesn't respond as well. As for Puck… you wonder why he avoids you so much? It's because he knows you can influence him somehow and he likes being his own man.

"You see, you might have thought you were helping them—but all you've really been doing is tying Mercedes to you while pushing Puck away. And recently, I've seen that you've been neglecting your friendship with Mercedes to spend time with Finn."

Kurt's eyes brim with tears, but Will smiles and taps Kurt on the chin. "Don't cry, Kurt. You're still young, and I don't quite expect you to be responsible for your actions yet. Someday you'll be mature enough to know what to do, but until then, I want you to listen to me."

Kurt takes this cue and looks Will in the eyes firmly. He keeps his tears back. _Oh Mercedes, I never meant to hurt you_, he cries internally. _I swear we'll be best friends again._

"Repeat after me: you will never use your powers on people in the family."

Because he thought he knew better than Will, Finn and Mercedes and even Puck got hurt. "I will never use my powers on people in our family."

"And you will always—always—use your powers when I tell you to."

Kurt doesn't even hesitate. Will has taken care of him for three years, has always treated him fairly, and obviously knows better than he does.

"I will always use my powers when you tell me to."

* * *

><p><strong>Will Schuester<strong>

* * *

><p>"Where's Noah? I want to talk to Noah!"<p>

"Miss Holliday, this is strictly a business trip. We can talk about your son at another time. Now, about our agreement…"

"Please, Mr. Schuester. I just want to see my son. It's been nine months. Doesn't this rehabilitation center allow for family visits?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Holliday, but in order for maximal benefit, it's best that we isolate your son from any part of his old environment. Now I have a pressing need and I need you to take care of it."

"…Yes sir."

* * *

><p>"I want Kurt back."<p>

"Excuse me?"

"You've been blocking my calls, my Skype conversations, I can't even send a stupid email to the fake address you gave me! What is this? I want to talk to my own son!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Corcoran, but what are you talking about?"

"My... my son! The hell are you talking about? My son, Kurt Corcoran! He's my son! I want to talk to him!"

"I'm sorry, but if you'll look at this record, you'll see that you gave your twin son and daughter up for adoption."

"I... no, I... yes, the girl, I gave her up for adoption. She was meant to be adopted. I was the surrogate mother, and after I gave birth to her, I signed a contract to abstain from any contact with her until she turned 18. But Kurt... Kurt was a surprise, and the gay couple who adopted the daughter didn't want him. So I adopted him. He's my son. Please. He's my son."

"Well, according to this government record, you did not. You simply cared for him. As a foster parent."

"No. No. NO. He's my son - "

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Corcoran. But Elgen representatives have decided to adopt Kurt. He's part of the family here. He already has been for the past three years."

"NO. He's my son! You can't just take him away from me! Please!"

"If I do remember correctly, you were the one who first surrendered him to our care in order to advance your career. How's that going for you?"

"Please, no, just let me talk to him..."

"Listen to me, Shelby. We gave you your shining Broadway career and your glory and fame and money. We gave that all to you. And, in return, the only thing we've taken from you is the son that neither you nor the Berry couple wanted in the first place. I suggest you let this matter drop quietly; we have very powerful allies."

"Just... just let me talk to him... Kurt..."

"I'm glad we got that settled. I hope to never hear from you again."

* * *

><p>"Now Mr. Abrams, I assure you - "<p>

"We thank you for your generous offer, Mr..."

"Schuester. Will Schuester."

"Mr. Schuester. But we simply can't afford that kind of treatment. We're currently financing - "

"Perhaps I haven't made myself clear before, but this treatment is the cutting edge of research, and currently all applicants are high-end volunteers. In other words, _we_ pay _you_ for his treatment."

"Oh. Really. There's got to be some sort of catch."

"None, sir. Only your son's extended stay as we treat him at our facility."

Pause. Will lets it sink in, sees Artie's father consider it seriously... and promptly shut it down. With guarded eyes, Mr. Abrams asks, "How long would our son be at your facility?"

"For however long it takes your son to run with on his own two legs again."

"I'm sorry," Mr. Abrams stands. "After such a tragedy, my wife wishes to keep our youngest son close. Such an extended absence would not benefit my wife's health, who also was in the car accident. I hope you understand."

Will nods grimly. "I understand perfectly."

* * *

><p><span>Will's Observations<span>:

Finn Hudson:  
>- mentally unstable; unable to control his internal electricity. Output exceeds 200,000 volts, enough to easily blast through plaster. Reinforcement of interior structures.<br>- has described his power as an "inner demon", something to be feared and kept hidden. Of course, he's had to hold it back so he wouldn't burn down the house.  
>- he's a strong kid. Able to keep his power under wraps for at least two years? Damn and he's only 7.<br>- handle with caution; power has been traumatic on him.  
>- incredibly loyal to friends. Transfer that loyalty to the whole of Elgen<br>- Sam describes Finn's power as similar to Puck's; however, whereas Puck's power responds to emotions, Finn's power accumulates and has to be siphoned off regularly to avoid violent outbursts.  
>- confrontation with Puck turned out surprisingly well, though that's probably Kurt's doing.<br>- formed synchronous connection with Kurt while Kurt used his power to probe him. Deep-seated fears unearthed: aversion to water, fear of hurting anybody/thing, phobia of earthworms, etc. Make sure to use this as leverage.

Noah Puckerman:  
>- mother Holly Holliday insists on seeing him. Mark her as a second level security threat.<br>- Puck, on the other hand, seems to have forgotten his family entirely.  
>- submitted to Finn (under Kurt's influence). May have to intervene if this doesn't pan out and Puck tries to establish hierarchy again.<br>- destructive tendencies: punches things when anger overtakes him; sometimes power manifests. Irresistible urge to shatter fragile things like crystal glass and vases; give him plastic baby cups or something. He also tried to burn a hole from his bedroom into Sam's and set his bed on fire instead. Install security cameras in all the bedrooms.

Sam Evans:  
>- has spotted two other electrical children (details below), in addition to Finn Hudson and Arthur Abrams. This seems to be the extent of the children in the immediate Pasadena area.<br>- tires of flight and wants more time with the family at Elgen. He's due for a break anyways.  
>- his parents are actively searching for him. Deal with this situation, and possibly get rid of the root of the problem with Finn.<br>- this kid just keeps on getting more and more energy... check for ADHD. His electrical output also seems to be increasing: causation or correlation?  
>- the Evans family have gone on a cruise without him<br>- "Glows" is a stupid name, but Bryan Ryan and the staff use it regularly. At least it's better than "big bright lights."

Mercedes Jones:  
>- emotional patterns have normalized in the absence of Kurt's influence. A little more moody and definitely homesick, though I suspect time will erase these residual memories<br>- removed her mother's necklace three weeks ago and gave her a friendship bracelet. Her nervous habit has shifted to grabbing the bracelet wrist. Still homesick though.  
>- send fake government report to parents.<br>- power increases as her own electrical field increases (with age). Consider technological addition to enhance powers?  
>- made friends with Sam. He's a good social influence on her—right between Kurt and Puck on the guy spectrum. She asks if there are any girls to play with… we'll work on that…<p>

Kurt Corcoran:  
>- things worked out surprisingly well; Kurt was easily guilted into making the pact.<br>- formed an intimate connection with Finn when probing him. He probably doesn't know how deep he went, but they're so synchronized that they often experience the same moods and simultaneous physiological needs (hunger, energy, need to pee, etc.) Must conduct further research.  
>- Sam says there's a super-thin strand of electricity between them that passes through walls.<br>- Has not been exerting influence on family members, which has changed the dynamic to allow the family to bond with each other instead of just with Kurt.  
>- also asked if there were any more girls to play with…<br>- demanded that his bedroom and wardrobe be refurnished in any color except pink. What are we going to do with all these pink unicorns?

Glows discovered in the immediate Pasadena area thanks to Sam's scouting:  
>- one went to the same daycare that Kurt did three years ago. Fascinating. Nothing else known about her other than location... and exceptionally low IQ, since she's still going to the same daycare.<br>- daughter of Philippine immigrants born in the country. It should easy enough to make up a reason for her.  
>- electrical activity similar to Finn's has been reported around San Francisco. Check it out.<br>- the Abrams have declined our offers to rehabilitate their son after his car accident. Time to get down and dirty.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Rant<em>

_For Finn's sisters, I took the actor's name (Cory Monteith) and split it into two girls' names (Corrie and Monty). Hey, Monty could be a nickname for Monica. _

_More clarifications: Holly Holliday is Puck's mother… and Will takes advantage of her (not such a nice guy, is he.) The Evans family is searching for their missing son while the Joneses still think their daughter is undergoing government testing. Elgen wants to avoid simply taking Artie, since they're already having trouble with Sam's parents. What sort of methods will Will employ to get his hands on the newest Glows? (Guess who they are?)_

_I'm playing around with this linked-minds thing—justified because it requires both people to open up their minds completely and lay themselves bare before the other person. That's infinitely easier with children because they're so trusting, their minds are pure, and they don't have much to hide. This synchronous connection is not something that Kurt's going to make with everybody he meets—just those special people that he opens himself up to._

_This chapter took longer to write... because I added another point of view and expanded on Will's section to include conversations with parents as well. And they're just going to keep getting longer. Reviews are love!_

**Words:** 7500  
><strong>New additions: <strong>Finn  
><strong>Cameos: <strong>  
>~ Bryan Ryan comes from <em>Glee<em>'s first season as Will's old high school rival. In this story, he'll definitely be making reappearances.  
>~ Holly Holiday again. Did I mention that she was <em>Glee<em>-verse Will's girlfriend for a huge chunk of the second season? Just in case you didn't know.  
>~ Shelby Corcoran as Kurt's ex-foster-mother.<br>**Total POVs:** Kurt, Mercedes, Sam, Puck, Finn, Will_  
><em>


	5. Eight Years Old

**Brittany Pierce**

* * *

><p>"Do you have your tree? Just make a loop like this… now the squirrel runs around the tree… he dives into the hole at the bottom of the tree… and then he comes out the other side. And look! You just tied your shoes!"<p>

Brittany's eyebrows furrow in concentration. The squirrel… where is the squirrel?

Outside, a rainstorm rages; Brittany concludes that the squirrel must be hiding in its hole since it doesn't want to get wet.

Mrs. Kendra, their teacher, comes around the room, checking up on the other kids. By the time she gets to Brittany, Brittany has taken off both her shoes and her socks and is peering into them.

"I can't find the squirrel," Brittany mumbles into her shoe.

"Oh Brittany," Mrs. Kendra sighs. "Heather? Could you come help your sister?"

Heather rolls her eyes but crosses the first grade room to help. Brittany gratefully offers her other shoe to her younger sister. "Where do squirrels hide their nuts if they're just going to forget where they are?" she asks.

Heather shakes her head, placing the shoe next to Brittany's bare foot. "No, you dummy. Mrs. Kendra wants you to tie your shoes."

"Oh. Then why didn't she say so in the first place?"

"She did, but you were playing with your hair."

Brittany tugs on her flowing blonde hair. Immediately, the tugging action brings a sense of familiarity and relief to her. She just wants to go home to her mommy and daddy. First grade is a scary place, and she always feels safe at home when her mommy brushes her hair. So whenever she goes to a big scary place, Brittany just pulls on her hair.

Brittany snaps back to the present when Heather grabs her hand. "You were spacing out again," her sister tells her. "Now put on your shoes. Do you remember how to make the tree roots with your shoelaces?"

* * *

><p>The blue crayon jerks to the side, out of the outline of the pot. Whoops. So much for coloring inside the lines. But really, it's just water splashing out of the pot, right? Brittany adds some more blue splashes. There's a lot of water coming out of the pot now. A wave. A tsunami! Torrents of blue crayon cascade down the flat paper, filling the kitchen with blue. The water is rising. It rises over the ankles of the mommy who's cooking on the stove. Over her knees. And then her waist. She doesn't move, frozen in place with a smile on her face. The water keeps gushing out of the pot, squirting her in the face with boiling water—but she keeps smiling, even as her face turns blue with crayon scribbles—<p>

"Brittany! What are you doing?"

Brittany looks up from her coloring adventure. "It's a flood," she answers, as if it's obvious.

"Honey, you were supposed to color inside the lines," Mrs. Kendra explains gently. "That's the rules, remember?"

"Forces of nature don't listen to rules," Brittany says simply.

As if confirming her statement, lightning flashes outside. Thunder quickly follows, and some kids squeal in fear. Across the room, Heather whimpers and looks for Brittany. Brittany establishes eye contact and smiles; Heather calms down.

"Don't worry, children," Mrs. Kendra comforts. "It's just a rainstorm with a little bit of flashy lights. Five more minutes left for coloring, and then we'll hang up everybody's pictures on the wall, okay?"

Mrs. Kendra is about to sit back down at her desk when the overhead lights flicker. A pause… then they start to flicker uncontrollably. One of the lights is directly above Heather, flashing bright and then dark and then super bright again and then the entire room goes dark, and then the lights explode in white flashes and shards of glass and plastic rain down around the room. Kids scream. Mrs. Kendra screams. Brittany is startled out of her hair-tugging trance. She looks around the dark room in surprise.

Blinding light. The windows vibrate. Did lightning just strike outside their school?

It's a couple seconds before the stars dancing in front of Brittany's eyes go away. Kids are still screaming, but Brittany is very calm. She looks around the room at her screaming classmates. Some of them aren't screaming, though; they aren't moving. They're just lying on the floor, motionless. A girl is on the floor, but she's moving around. Thrashing, actually. Jerking uncontrollably. Limbs flailing wildly. A flash of blond hair.

Heather!

Brittany rushes to her sister's side. This has happened before. Daddy said it was ep-lip-see or something. When Heather sees bright flashing lights, she throws a tantrum. It doesn't matter if she's happy or sad or mad; she just falls to the ground and can't control herself. And nobody can stop her. Nobody, except Brittany.

Brittany throws her arms around her younger sister. Heather keeps struggling, but the longer Brittany holds her, the less violent Heather becomes. Brittany just mumbles soothing words and focuses on sending calming waves from her mind to Heather's mind. Slowly, her little sister relaxes until her arms wrap around Brittany too.

"I'm scared," Heather cries softly.

"It's okay," Brittany whispers. "I'm holding you. You're safe."

Waves of calm wash over both of them.

* * *

><p>School gets out early that day, and Heather and Brittany walk home. Their apartment is just around the corner, and Heather has insisted that, if Brittany can walk home, so can she. Even though Brittany's eight and Heather's five. But Brittany's been held back twice and Heather skipped preschool, so that technically makes them the same age, right?<p>

Anyways, they've just reached the corner when a car pulls up next to them. A boy jumps out of the backseat; he looks really worried. Brittany instantly likes him; he's as blonde as she is.

"Can you help me?" he asks frantically. "I lost my kitty. Can you help us look for him?"

"Sure!" Brittany agrees enthusiastically.

"No," Heather says immediately, grabbing Brittany's hand. "Mom said not to talk to strangers."

"But he's like us," Brittany argues, pulling on a strand of golden hair for emphasis.

"We don't know him," Heather maintains, tugging on her sister's hand insistently. "I've never seen him before. He doesn't go to our school."

"But his kitty is lost!"

"If he doesn't go to our school, that means he doesn't live in our district. So his kitty isn't lost here." Heather looks at the boy. "Why are you looking for your cat here? And why did you say _help us_? Who else is with you?"

Brittany pouts. "His kitty is lost and he's looking for it, that's all. Why do you have to ask questions all the time?"

"Just because I'm three years younger than you," Heather bristles, "doesn't mean that you're smarter than me."

"Please," the blond boy begs. "Help me find Lord Tubbington."

Brittany's eyes widen. "Your kitty is named Lord Tubbington too?"

Heather pulls Brittany's wrist back with both of her hands. "It's not our cat!" she almost screams. "There's no one else in the world who would name their cat Lord Tubbington! They're tricking you! They want to hurt you!"

"It's Lord Tubbington's son! We have to save him!"

"No! Mom said not to talk to strangers! They'll hurt you!"

A hand reaches out of the roof of the car. Why is there a hole in the car?

Then there's a big flash of light. And another. And another. Brittany is blinded by the bright flashes of light and she can't see. Heather's hands release her wrist, and the blond boy pulls her other hand toward the car.

"BRITTANY!" Heather screams, and then her voice is suddenly choked off.

Hands pull her into the car. The door shuts. Brittany has a brief moment of doubt—why are they being so rough, even when she wants to help them? And what happened to Heather? Why didn't they bring her along either?

They're driving away. They're leaving Heather behind.

"HEATHER!"

The car keeps driving.

* * *

><p><strong>Sunshine Corazon<strong>

* * *

><p>"E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C-A-L. Electrical."<p>

"W-U-N-D-E-R-K-I-N-D. Wunderkind."

"S-E-N-S-O-R-Y. Sensory."

"D-E-P-R-I-V-A-T-I-O-N. Deprivation."

Sunshine Corazon beams as the crowd erupts into applause. "Congratulations to Sunshine Corazon, winner of the 35th annual spelling bee!" an adult announces, and somebody pins a big blue ribbon to her dress front. She spots her proud mother in the crowd and waves excitedly.

Afterward the awards ceremony, she runs down the aisle and hugs her mom. "I did it!" she yips.

"_That's my Sunshine_," her mother says fondly in Filipino. "_You've got your mother's brains._"

"_And my father's bright attitude,_" Sunshine chirps, then switches back to English. "Can we go get pie now?"

"_Not yet_," her mom chides. "_Be patient. There's a very, very special man here to see you._" She angles her body to the side, and Sunshine notices the tall man standing nearby in a dress shirt covered by a sweater vest.

"Will Schuester," the man smiles kindly, offering his hand to shake. Sunshine takes it and introduces herself as well.

"I'm Sunshine Corazon."

"I hear that you are one of Pasadena's brightest minds."

"One of the best," Sunshine grins unabashedly. Everybody tells her that.

"Modest, too," Mr. Schuester laughs. Her mother laughs nervously as well, and Sunshine takes that as a note to tone it down. But not too much, because this man is obviously here to offer her something, and Sunshine needs to assure him that giving her the scholarship/academic advancement/promotion is the best course of action. "What do you like to do for fun?"

"Well… I really love to sing. Sometimes when I'm sad or tired or don't want to study, I just sing Celine Dion or Whitney Houston. So my mom and I, we sing together, and that always makes me happier. But I also love to learn about the world; I like the library, because there are so many books and I can study all I want. And then when I get tired, I can go outside and sing as loud as I want."

Mr. Schuester laughs. Sunshine gets the feeling that Mr. Schuester likes her enough to give her the promotion/scholarship/whatever, and she waits for him to say something.

"Sunshine Corazon… how would you like to come to a special school for kids like you?"

* * *

><p><strong>Finn Hudson<strong>

* * *

><p>The pretty blond girl hates Finn.<p>

Will sends him on the mission to pick her up, but her sister doesn't want her to go. So Will tells Finn to shoot lightning out the top of the car, through the skylight. Finn doesn't know why, but when he does it, Brittany's sister freaks out. After Sam pulls Brittany in the car, Brittany won't stop screaming and throwing a tantrum, so Will pulls over, pours some liquid into a towel, and holds it over Brittany's face till she falls asleep.

Once they get back home, though, Brittany doesn't calm down. Half the time she's crying, the other half she's pulling out her hair. Like literally grabbing fistfuls of her shiny blonde hair until it comes out and then she cries even harder. Kurt tries to calm her down when Will tells him to, but it doesn't affect her at all. It's only when Mercedes hugs her tight and doesn't let go that Brittany calms down.

From then on, Mercedes and Brittany are always, always together.

Anyways, Brittany hates him. If she doesn't scream in homesick terror at just the sight of him, she settles for murderous glares. Mercedes eventually learns to avoid Finn altogether.

Things get worse when Will takes him out for field training—practicing his powers out in public, learning how to hide them and then how to pull them out at a moment's notice—and tells him to hit the lightning rod on a nearby house. Finn has gotten pretty good at hitting targets from 25 meters away, but this is at least 50 meters and the lightning rod is really, really skinny.

Will believes in him, though, so Finn shoots.

And misses.

And sets the house on fire.

There's a huge explosion. Gas, the reports say later. The house collapses and burns down within twenty minutes. Four casualties—two parents and two babies. A family.

Finn killed them all.

Sometimes Finn wants to curl up in a corner and die. Despite Will's best efforts to cultivate the demon inside of him, Finn still let it get out of control. Because of it, he killed an entire family and hurt so many more. It's Finn's worst nightmare—the people whom Finn loves and wants to protect are afraid of him, because of his power. He caused Brittany's sister to fall and hit her head. Will showed him the medical report of Heather Pierce, who suffered a concussion during a freak lightning strike. Now Brittany and Mercedes avoid him.

But Puck punches him in the shoulder, calls him a sissy, and tells him to man up. So Finn bottles it up—it's not any different than holding back the thunder demon. He's been doing it since he was four; he can handle murder and guilt and shame too. He just pretends that it doesn't hurt when Mercedes pulls Brittany away, holding her tightly and assuring her that she won't let Finn hurt her.

* * *

><p>"Dude, Finn! Watch out!"<p>

Finn looks over his shoulder at Puck in confusion. The reason for his friend's warning becomes apparent as the stack of boxes underneath him becomes unstable. With nothing to grab onto, Finn falls backwards, and all the boxes fall on top of him.

"OOF!" Finn grunts as boxes pummel his torso. Footsteps, then Puck's hand pushes through rubble and pulls him free. "When I say _look out_, I mean _get the hell out of there, dipstick. _You okay man?"

Finn smiles ruefully and rubs the back of his head. "I'm good. I've got a thick head."

"You got that right," Puck mutters. "Well, how are we going to get in the air vent now?"

The two boys look up at the opening in the wall, seven feet above the ground. The boxes that had been stacked up against the wall are now lying around the floor, their contents scattered about.

Finn shakes his head, taking charge of the situation again. "We'll try a different vent. Let's get out of here before Will sees this mess."

Puck nods and follows Finn out of the room. "But he'll already assume it's us," Puck speaks.

"But he can't be sure. We'll just blame it on Sam."

* * *

><p>"Will said we weren't supposed to go in the kitchen when it's not mealtimes," Kurt warns, tugging on the back of Finn's cautiously.<p>

"But I'm hungry," Finn says, shaking himself free. Kurt's really nice, but sometimes he can be really naggy. And maybe annoying.

Puck rounds on Kurt. "If you're such a scaredy-cat, why are you following us?" he sneers.

Since Puck's mean enough for the both of them; Finn feels bad whenever he's mean too. So he makes up for Puck's meanness by being nicer. "Hey, if he was a scaredy-cat, he wouldn't have come in the first place."

Kurt's eyes slide over to Finn in grateful adoration. It makes Finn feel good about himself, but also a little creeped out. Kurt says softly, "I just don't want Finn to get in trouble."

Puck makes a little noise that says, _You're an idiot, Finn… can't you see he's gaga about you?_ but Finn ignores this. His stomach is growling very loudly now. Finn's got a big body and a bigger stomach. He needs to fill it now, even though it's past midnight. Finn shrugs and begins to jog across the room. "Thanks Kurt. But I'm really hungry, and the diet plan that Will gave me sucks. Let's go; I'm starving."

Finn and Puck towards the door where the cooks usually bring food stacked on big carts. When they get there, though, the door's locked. There's a keypad where a doorknob should be.

"Are you serious?" Puck exclaims. "Why do you need a code for the kitchen?"

"Food," Finn moans. "I need food."

Puck punches Finn lightly. "Stop being such a wuss. So the door's locked. We'll find a way in."

Kurt is suddenly behind them, his high voice clear in their ears. "It's probably locked for a reason. Like preventing pigs like Puck from eating the rest of us into starvation."

Puck rounds on Kurt, but he doesn't react the way Finn expects him to. Instead, Puck says, "You know what? That cook who blended a cricket in Mercedes' banana smoothie two weeks ago—I bet he's locked in there!"

The blood drains from Kurt's face. Puck appears to be greatly satisfied from this and continues.

"I bet they've got him chained to the floor and throw dull knives at him when they can't chop through the veggies for your diet anymore. Sometimes a finger or a toe falls off, so they just blend it into your food for extra protein, you know? And they feed him all the crap we don't want to eat, just to keep him alive so they can torture him longer. Or even better—I bet he's locked the freezer and he's all blue and frozen and his eyeballs have split open because the fluid inside them is frozen hard and—"

Kurt screams in fright, and Finn punches Puck in the shoulder. "Cut it out," Finn mutters. "Besides, I'm not hungry anymore."

* * *

><p><strong>Noah Puckerman<strong>

* * *

><p>Another girl arrives at Elgen. She's really small and looks Chinese. Puck ignores her when she insists she's Filipino; she has squinty eyes and black hair and an accent, and all of that makes her Chinese. He tugs at her pigtails just to piss her off, and for a split second, she looks annoyed—but then it clears up and she smiles and dances away and Puck's not sure not just happened.<p>

Life changes once Sunshine arrives. School suddenly becomes a lot more serious, and it's all because Sunshine is a smarty-pants-know-it-all. So every morning, Kurt, Mercedes, Brittany, Finn, Sam, and Puck arrive at the classroom, which is down a hallway from the common room.

Puck and Finn do addition and subtraction tables.

Kurt and Sam do multiplication and division tables.

On the other side of the room, Brittany works on counting up to twenty. She's so concentrated on her task, she doesn't notice Sam or Finn most of the time; also, she always gets stuck on ten, and Mercedes has to lean over from her math homework and help her.

Sunshine does geometry. Freakin' geometry. Puck resents her because she's making him learn his subtraction tables when he could be in the training room learning to beat things up.

"Hey Chinesy!" Puck shouts after class.

"I'm Filipino," Sunshine corrects, swiveling on her heel and giving him a bright smile.

"Yeah, whatever. Couldn't you just be like Brittany for once? Like stupid or something?"

"Brittany's not stupid," Sunshine defends.

"That's you being stupid. Good job! Because Brittany's dumber than a bag of rocks. She can't tie her shoes, she misses her mouth half the time when eating spaghetti, she freaks out if I do this—" Puck reaches over and tugs at one of Sunshine's pigtails— "and she has a useless power."

"You know what her power is?"

Puck shrugs carelessly. "Don't know, don't care. But she doesn't do anything. She's just stupid."

"_You're_ stupid," Sunshine retorts with a sudden amount of venom. "You're so stupid. Brittany is a really nice girl and just because you haven't seen her power before, you just call her stupid?"

"That, and she talks to her imaginary friends every night. Lord Tubbington and Heather, apparently."

"How do you know? Wait, Mercedes told me about this before! You snuck into Kurt's room too and went through his closet! What are you doing in Brittany's room? At night?"

Puck shrugs. "Recon. I need something to hold over people in case they try to defy me." He grins wickedly. "I even went through your room. Now tell me I'm awesome, or I'll tell everybody that you peed your pants last night."

It's a lie, but it's worth it to see Sunshine's happy face disappear under her anger and not come back. Besides, it's not like she can do anything, right?

One instant, he's relishing the look of angry defeat in Sunshine's eyes. He's relishing the power boost he gets from intimidating people like this.

A little tingling starts at the base of his neck. And then he can't see anything.

Puck gasps. He stands in complete darkness. He tries to move around, but then the disorientation starts. With no reference point to latch onto, vertigo renders him helpless. The world is spinning and spinning and he might throw up—

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" Hands grab his shoulders, providing an anchor. Puck focuses on the sensation of touch as Sunshine pulls his head into her lap and cradles it. He focuses on the sound of her voice directly above him as she murmurs, "I'm sorry" over and over again. Two fingers press into the base of his neck, and that tingling sensation returns. Puck gasps as particles of light pierce his vision, and then he's looking up into Sunshine's face and the world stops spinning, because he can focus on her face as his anchor.

Just then, Brittany and Mercedes walk in on them, and of course Mercedes can't help but gush, "Aw, I knew it! You like her, don't you, Puck!"

Puck wants to explode in anger. He wants to let loose and stab all the girls with his electric daggers, Will and his rules about family be damned. These people aren't his family; they aren't even in his pack.

But then he sees Brittany. She hides behind Mercedes, her huge eyes quivering. She's… innocent. It's something that Puck had never encountered in his neighborhood, and something that he can't bring himself to ruin.

The anger in him dies away. It's a strange feeling; Puck's used to exploding until he has nothing left. Instinctively, he looks around for Kurt and his damned calming power, but the kid's nowhere to be seen. It's just Puck calming himself down.

Not quite knowing what to do, Puck flees to his room.

Whatever. It's not like he likes Brittany.

Or Sunshine.

He definitely does not like Brittany.

* * *

><p>The kitchen door is locked, as usual.<p>

This time, though, Puck's really hungry. He'd exerted himself too much during training today trying to cut plexiglass. He hadn't succeeded cutting as much as just deforming the glass and just ended up hungrier than usual, but the cooks still gave him the same amount of dinner.

Finn's always hungry, but this time Puck has personal motivation as well. He _needs_ to eat. Right now. And damn it if some stupid locked kitchen door is going to stand between him and food.

The storage room right next to it, the one that Finn and Puck explored two weeks ago, is not locked. And the boxes have been restacked right next to the air vent, which appears to go right into the kitchen.

Puck holds the stack of boxes steady as Finn clumsily scrambles up to the vent and pops the grill off.

"Do you bring the flashlight?" Puck asks as Finn tries to fold his gangly arms into his body.

"What? I thought you had it!" The vent booms loudly as Finn smacks his head into the ceiling. "Ouch!"

"Quiet!" hisses Puck. "You're going to wake the entire floor!"

A couple quieter booms echo as Finn's elbows crash into the sides. "Ouch! Argh! Sorry, you try fitting my arms into this space. Ow!"

"What are you guys doing? I can hear Puck's voice from the hallway. If you really want to be sneaky, you should try closing the door."

Puck whirls around; Sam has just closed the door behind him. Unwilling to admit that he forgot such a simple idea, he barks, "What are you doing here! This is a secret mission!"

"Who is it?" Finn's muffled voice echoes from the vent. His legs wave from the opening, trying to push himself further inside.

Puck makes an impromptu decision. "Sam, we need you to keep a lookout," he instructs. "Me and Finn are getting into the kitchen through this vent. You just need to stand here and warn us if any adults are coming. Just sit up here and tap on the wall of the vent twice if anybody comes in."

Sam nods enthusiastically, happy to be included in somebody's plans. "Right!"

"Don't screw this up for us," Puck mutters, before climbing in after Finn. His entry into the metal vent is a lot quieter than Finn's.

"You're too noisy," Puck hisses, and his voice echoes around him. Finn's butt wiggles ahead of him as he tries to worm himself down the tube. Every awkward shuffle creates loud bangs that makes Puck wince. "Seriously, stop moving so much!"

"Sorry! My elbows keep getting in the way!"

"Are you sure you know which way the kitchen is?"

"Yeah. If we just keep moving this way… oh crap."

Puck looks up, but all he can see in the darkness is the outline of Finn's tush. "What?"

Finn flops over onto his left side in a resounding crash. From this position, Finn can look down at Puck. "There's a left turn and a right turn."

"I thought you knew where you were going!"

"Yeah, well I thought there would just be a straight path!"

"Well there isn't, so go with your tingly food senses and choose a path. You're the one who's always hungry, sniff out your food or something."

Finn curls around to the left, twisting his body around the corner. Every pathetic flop sends crashing vibrations through Puck, who scowls.

When Finn has finally maneuvered himself through, he pauses for breath. "That was a lot tougher than I thought."

Puck follows, easily contorting himself around the bend. "That wasn't so hard," he scoffs.

Finn sighs. "I'm bigger than you."

"We're the same size."

"My arms are twice as long as yours."

"True." Puck follows Finn in silence, occasionally telling him to stop banging around so much.

After about two minutes of following Finn's sounds, Puck hisses, "Wait, shut up."

They both lie still for just a second… but the vibrations keep going. Something's coming towards them.

"They know somebody's in the vents!" Puck says urgently. "If they find us, we're screwed!"

Stealth abandoned in their frantic flight for freedom, Puck and Finn crash/worm/flop through the vents. Finn's elbows smack against the metal in a rhythmic gallop, and Puck is kicked in the face by Finn's feet every once in a while. Puck vows to get Finn back later, but for now, they need to get out of here.

Finn suddenly stops. "The vent goes down," he huffs. "I don't know where…"

"Just go!" Puck yells, shoving against Finn's butt with all his strength. Finn screams, and then his kicking legs go over the edge. Something crashes below, then breaks. Puck peers over the edge.

Oh. They've found a ceiling vent into a room that is definitely not the kitchen.

Finn lies in a broken, moaning heap on somebody's bedroom floor.

Behind him, the pounding of their pursuer stops. Then Sam's voice pipes hesitantly, "Are you guys okay?"

* * *

><p><strong>Sam Evans<strong>

* * *

><p>Sam doesn't really understand why Finn and Puck are so mean to him. So maybe he didn't listen when Puck told him to wait outside the vent and watch for adults. So maybe he followed them inside the vent and scared Finn into diving headlong into a vertical shaft leading into Kurt's room. So maybe Kurt screamed so loud that he woke the entire floor and projected his terror onto everybody in the building, creating mass panic and general chaos for Elgen Academy until the wee hours of morning.<p>

Sam just wants to be included, that's all.

Except now, Puck and Finn just glare at him all the time. At least, Puck does; most of the time, Finn's trying not to trip himself on his own crutches. His face is always screwed up in intense concentration. Sam wants to try, partially to prove that they're not as hard to use as Finn is making them out to be, and partially just for the fun of it. Crutches look fun!

Brittany still misses her family and blames Sam for bringing her to Elgen. Her eyes get really big every time she sees him and sometimes she begins to cry, so Mercedes makes it her job to avoid Sam as much as possible. It makes Sam really sad, because he really likes Mercedes.

Sunshine is new, so Sam immediately makes friends with her. Her power looks a lot like Brittany's power, but other than that, Sam really can't tell Mr. Will much more. Both of their powers look like big bright lights sitting in their heads and don't do anything unless they touch people, or touch a metal pole when the pole is also touching the other person. They test their powers on Nurse Beiste using the metal pole method in Cell 25; when Brittany and Sunshine make contact, a little wisp of electricity reaches out, runs through the metal pole, and zaps other person's mind light. Brittany's power doesn't seem to do anything to Nurse Beiste. Sunshine's power, on the other hand, encapsulates Beiste's mind light in a ball and makes her blind.

"Is that what you do? Make people blind?" Sam asks Sunshine later as she helps him with his science homework.

"I thought Mr. Will said we weren't supposed to talk about each other's powers," Sunshine says.

"Oh. Well, I was just wondering."

Sunshine bites her lip. "I've been doing it since I was six. I got really mad at some girls when they wouldn't get off the swings, and then they all couldn't see anything. And they all fell off."

Sam laughs. "So you got to swing?"

Sunshine looks horrified. "No! I was freaking out too! All five of them fell like flies. All at the same time. And they were all screaming. I don't think anybody knew it was me, but I vowed from then on not to get mad at anybody ever again."

"Is that why you're so Sunshine-y?" Sam grins shyly.

"Aw, you're so nice," Sunshine smiles back. "So what's your power?"

"It's boring," Sam huffs, chewing on his pencil. "I see your power. What it looks like. And I can pick you out as the special one from a crowd of a hundred, no, a thousand normal people."

Sunshine looks flattered. "Really? What do I look like?"

"You look like Brittany," Sam answers, oblivious. "There's this ball of light sitting in your head—"

Mr. Will walks into the room right then, which shuts Sam up immediately (cuz they're not supposed to talk about their powers). But Mr. Will doesn't look angry at all; in fact, he looks… really serious. Sad, even.

"Sam, could you come up to my office?"

* * *

><p>No.<p>

It can't be.

Sam hasn't seen his family in two years, but that doesn't mean he doesn't miss them sometimes.

It's just that Elgen has been one big fun adventure. And Mercedes and Kurt and Mr. Will and Mr. Bryan Ryan are sort of like his second family.

And truthfully, he doesn't really think much about his other family. He was only six when he came to live at Elgen, and his parents' faces are really fuzzy in his memory. He can't even remember if the baby his parents had brought home two weeks before he left was a boy or girl.

Except now he knows it was a baby boy, and his parents had another baby girl a year after that—and that all four of them were killed in a fire. A gas explosion set off by a lightning strike during a freak thunderstorm.

He cries into Mr. Will's shirt as Mr. Will carries him down the elevator and back into his bedroom. They pass Kurt, Sunshine, Brittany, and Mercedes in the common room; Kurt follows Mr. Will into Sam's room, and the moment Sam feels the cushions of his own bed, and heaviness settles around his mind like a sleepy blanket.

When he wakes up, though, the ache in his chest isn't any less painful. In fact, it just grows stronger as the week carries on—every time Puck sneers at him, or when Kurt talks to Finn and ignores him, Brittany begins to cry around him and Mercedes has to pull her away. Every day, he feels more like he doesn't belong in the Elgen family, but his _true_ family are all dead. He'll never be able to be where he truly belonged.

Even though Mr. Will tells him every day that the Elgen family will always be there for him, even if his _real_ family isn't anymore. But for the first time in his life, Sam doesn't believe Mr. Will (even if he is really nice.) Because his strongest link to Elgen—Mercedes—ditched him and chose Brittany over him, after all the time they spent together drinking tea. Sam doesn't even like tea; he only drank it because it meant he could be around Mercedes.

Stupid, annoying, crybaby Brittany.

So when he finds Brittany sitting in the middle of his room one day, tearing up pictures that he drew of his real family, he explodes. He stomps right over to her and shoves her to the ground. "What are you doing?" he screams.

Brittany immediately bursts into tears. "W-w-why do you h-hate me?" she sobs.

"I should ask the same about you!" Sam roars. "My mommy just died and you're tearing up my only—" Frustrated beyond speech, he just settles for punching her. She gasps in pain. Serves her right—she doesn't know what it feels like. His mom and his dad are gone forever, and nobody here loves him as much as they did. His parents loved him no matter what. They were always there for him. Here, nobody is here for him when Puck makes fun of him and hurts him.

Brittany hasn't picked herself up yet. She just lies sprawled out on the ground, blubbering into the carpet.

Because he hurt her.

All of Sam's rage evaporates instant the second he realizes that he hurt her. She probably misses her mommy and daddy too, and no one's here to comfort her either.

He's a terrible person. All this time, Brittany has been afraid of him because he and Finn took her away from her real family—and then he went further than Puck ever has and actually punched her. With tears running down his face, he reaches towards her to apologize—

"Brittany! Sam, what did you do?"

Mercedes kneels down next to Brittany, hauling the girl's head into her lap. Brittany shakily points at Sam as she buries her face into Mercedes' shirt.

Sam looks at Mercedes pleadingly. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry._

Mercedes' facial expression says, _I hate you_.

Sam feels truly alone.

* * *

><p><strong>Mercedes Jones<strong>

* * *

><p>Mercedes can't believe she ever drank tea with Sam. It's something that she really liked to do—after all, she used to do it all the time with Kurt. Sam was just a replacement until Kurt came back. She's not sure if she can accept that Kurt likes Finn and not her. It just makes her feel angry. But she can still be best friends with Kurt, like Will said.<p>

Will never said she had to be friends with Finn, though. So she decides not to like him. He's just like Puck.

And so is Sam. No, he's worse than Puck. Sam is the worst boy who ever lived. He hit Brittany so hard that she fell to the ground and couldn't move. That's the worst thing a boy could ever do—hurt a girl so much that she can't pick herself up afterwards. Puck's mean, but he's never hit any of them.

When Sunshine quietly pipes up that Brittany tore up Sam's drawings of his other family, Mercedes doesn't care. Sam's so bad, Mercedes can't believe she ever drank tea with him. That was a special thing she did with Kurt when they were the first two children at Elgen—now Sam has forever spoiled that memory.

So Mercedes just leaves him behind. She ignores him. She spends all her free time with Brittany now, playing with their stuffed animals, swinging on the swing set, and avoiding the boys (except Kurt, because he doesn't have the cooties).

Though actually, Mercedes doesn't have that much free time anymore. For the past couple weeks, Will has her working on her power a lot more. Hours and hours of lifting heavy metal objects, swinging them around. At first, it was really fun—her fourth day, she made a mini-tornado of paper clips—but then Will made her push around bigger things, like file cabinets and even a big car. And then she had to do even more specific things, like turning a metal doorknob to open a wooden door, or opening a refrigerator door without moving the rest of the refrigerator, or throwing metal darts into a dartboard using only her mind.

Every day, she can do more and more with her magnetism—but more and more, she just wants to get out of the training room and play with Brittany or Sunshine. Sunshine still talks to Sam, though, and that makes Mercedes really mad at her. But Sunshine's just a really nice girl—it's probably written somewhere in her Rulebook of Nice People that she has to be nice to everyone, even the worst boys in the world.

One day, though, Sunshine shakes her head when Mercedes and Brittany try to pull her away from her homework to go outside and make daisy chains.

"But whyyyyy?" Brittany moans.

"I have to talk to Sam," Sunshine replies quietly, not at all like her usual cheerful self.

"I don't get why you even want to see him," Mercedes scoffs. "He's so stupid! He's the worst person in the world. I don't even know why Will wants to keep him here."

Instantly afterwards, Mercedes feels a little dizzy. Her vision dims and the sounds of the world around her fade away—but seconds afterwards, she's back to normal, wondering if that really just happened. Actually, what really happened? But then she notices Sunshine's furious expression.

"He's part of the family," Sunshine growls. "Just like you and Brittany are. We're all a family at Elgen Academy. The only thing that makes him different is that he just lost his other family—so he has nobody outside of here. He can't go back, because there's nobody to go back to." Sunshine's anger melts away instantly, and she looks at the floor. "And neither do I."

Mercedes is shocked when Brittany steps forward, pulling Sunshine into a hug. Mercedes does exactly this to Brittany when Puck makes fun of them; except now, Mercedes is the one making Sunshine sad and Brittany is the one comforting her.

"My mom was deported back to the Philippines," Sunshine mumbles. "But she left me here so I could still be an American citizen and get a good education. Elgen is the only family I have left."

Brittany nods. "We're all family here." She takes in a shaky breath. "Even Sam. I heard him—he said he was sorry for hurting me."

Mercedes joins the hug, but only so she can be included. She almost feels betrayed that Brittany is forgiving Sam (even if the only reason why she hated Sam in the first place was because Brittany was afraid of him)—but if it makes Sunshine and Brittany happier that Sam come back into the family, then sure.

She'll pretend.

But secretly, she'll make sure Sam doesn't ever forget. He is a horrible person after all, and he needs what he deserves.

* * *

><p><strong>Kurt Corcoran<strong>

* * *

><p>"My name is Hatch now."<p>

They're eating dinner together—Kurt and Mercedes always sit next to Will, since they know him the best, and Kurt made sure that Finn sat next to him. That also means that Puck has to sit next to Mercedes to be across from Finn, but Kurt convinced Mercedes that it was okay. After the incident with Sam and Brittany, Mercedes became a bit more willing to sit next to Puck. Sunshine separates Brittany from Sam, Will sits at the head of the table, and that's their seating arrangement.

Except Will doesn't want to be called Will anymore, and that's really weird.

"Are you Will's twin?" Brittany asks.

As Sunshine explains the concept to Brittany, Kurt questions, "Why do you want to change your name?"

"Business reasons," Will—ahem, Hatch—answers. "I would like all of you to call me by Hatch now. Even you, Brittany. Don't forget."

Brittany nods obediently.

"And above all, guys," Will—erm, Hatch says, "We're all a family here. You guys have to remember that. Two weeks ago, Sam's family died when their house burned down."

Kurt notices that a look of guilt and pain passes through Finn's eyes.

"And Sunshine's mother recently returned to the Philippines to care for the rest of her family. To Sam and Sunshine—" Hatch looks straight into all of their eyes, and Mercedes flinches—"every one of you are their family now. So act like it. Be their family and support them, because they have no one left."

Kurt nods. That's totally something Hatch would say. He knows what a family should be. What a family should do. He's the father of the Elgen family here.

That's the family that Kurt belongs to. He hasn't seen him mother in a couple years, and truthfully, he doesn't need to see her. Hatch has cared for him for the past four years. His mom has a successful career on Broadway, Hatch tells him, and she's happy. Meanwhile, Kurt is also happy here at Elgen—the staff gives him everything he wants, Hatch actually _wants_ him to use his power to help the world, and Mercedes and Finn are here. Plus a bunch of other good friends, like Sunshine and Sam. And then some weird people like Puck and Brittany, whom he still likes, but tries to avoid because talking to them is confusing and doesn't really go anywhere.

His family is here, at Elgen Academy, living with his best friends forever.

After dinner, Kurt stays behind to help Finn with his crutches.

Finn grins at him as he leans on his crutches. "Thanks for helping me, Kurt. You're pretty awesome."

"And you're hurt," Kurt responds. "Everybody should help you. That's what our family is for, right?"

"So I guess the barging into your room in the middle of the night also counts as family business," Finn laughs.

Kurt slaps his arm lightly. "Hey, nobody is allowed in my room. Or my closet." _Except maybe you_, Kurt adds mentally.

And truthfully, Kurt's actually happy that Finn crashed in his room through the ceiling vent. He got to hold and care for Finn when he really needed his help, and Puck wasn't there to laugh at both of them and embarrass Finn.

"Kurt."

Kurt knows instantly that Will… no, Hatch is behind him. (Why would Will change his name? It's just so hard to call him Hatch!) Kurt turns around instantly, pulling on Finn's shirt to turn him around as well.

Hatch shakes his head. "Kurt, I just want to see you." He looks at Finn. "Go back to the common area. Get some rest; it'll help you heal faster."

Finn nods wordlessly and hobbles off alone. Kurt waves goodbye, then turns back to Hatch and notices that Sunshine and Sam are standing behind him. A group meeting?

"I want you three to start training during the night as well," Hatch says firmly. "It's essential that you learn to project your powers so that they can still affect people over long distances. We know that practice makes perfect, so I'd like you three to develop your powers as soon as possible."

Kurt nods immediately. Whatever Hatch says.

On the other hand, Sunshine looks horrified. "You… you want me to practice? On people?"

Hatch crouches down so that he's eye-to-eye with the Asian girl. "Sunshine, one of the greatest reasons you are here is _because_ you have such an amazing power. You see, we have people here who have been researching the brain and its functions for years so they can help people with terrible diseases like autism or Alzheimer's."

Kurt has no idea what any of those words mean, but Sunshine nods slowly, as if they have personal meaning to her. Or maybe it's just because she's so smart.

Hatch continues, "By working with us, you can help us treat those people. So even if what we tell you to do doesn't make sense, you have to trust us. We have devoted our entire lives to this research and we know more than you do. One day you will know as much as we do and be able to make your own decisions on how to best approach the world's problems, but until then, you must obey everything we tell you to do. That way, you can use your power so that it does good for everyone involved, instead of harming people. Okay?"

Sunshine nods again, this time confidently. "I trust you, Hatch," she says eagerly. "Thank you."

Yes indeed. Because of Hatch, not only does Kurt have a life in which his family is composed of his best friends… he is also making an impact on society.

Elgen Academy is going to save the world.

* * *

><p>It's just another day at the mall, with people walking around with bags full of clothes, or holding hands. Hatch stands directly behind Kurt, Sunshine, and Sam on the second floor of the mall, watching all the people down below.<p>

So many people. They all look so tiny from where Kurt stands—like little ants swarming everywhere.

Nobody talks. Sunshine's waiting for Hatch to direct her and Sam doesn't say anything, which is unusual. Kurt still remembers the first time he met Sam—at this very mall three years ago. Sam picked him and Mercedes out of everybody there because that was his power—he could see Glows. The Sam that Kurt remembers was excited and had tons of energy and talked a lot and liked hugs and holding hands. The Sam that Kurt sees now just stares at the ground, or looks wistfully at families walking together, like he wishes he could be with them.

He shouldn't do that. Elgen Academy is his family now. Kurt is his family now. Sam should _want_ to be with him and Sunshine and Hatch, instead of wishing he was with random families on the first floor of the mall.

Instinctively, Kurt reaches out and grabs Sam's hand—just like that first day, when Kurt pulled Sam away from the crowd in the mall and into the Elgen family. Sam needs to know that the people at Elgen will always been here for him.

Sam glances up at Kurt in surprise. Then, slowly, his eyes brighten as the darkness behind them clears away. He smiles, just a little bit, and the grip on Kurt's hand tightens.

"Kurt," Hatch speaks. Kurt jumps and tries to pull his hand away, but Sam doesn't let go. Kurt glances at Sam; Sam just looks into him, almost begging Kurt to keep holding onto him.

Kurt wishes Finn would look at him like that.

But it's Sam, whom Kurt doesn't mind. So he smiles, squeezes Sam's hand, and looks at Hatch.

"I want you to make that person scared," Hatch points, squatting down next to Kurt so he can peer down Hatch's arm. "That tall guy with the meerkat face. _Only_ that person. Nobody around him should get scared… just him."

Kurt follows Hatch's finger and gasps. The teenager is surrounded by at least six friends, all dressed in the same blue suits, white shirts, and red-and-blue striped ties. Kurt has practiced in Elgen's basement at choosing certain people to affect, but that was only with three men. There are too many people all around, there's no way—

Hatch's hand rests gently on his shoulder. "I know you can do it, Kurt," Hatch says gently. "I believe in you."

Sam squeezes Kurt's hand, and Kurt nods. He concentrates on the laughing group of teenagers sitting next to a water fountain. They're all sitting still, which makes it easier on Kurt. He reaches forward mentally, registering every person's emotional state. Sam told him that his "big bright light" likes to reach out with wisps of electricity and touch other people's brain lights, so Kurt just imagines that he's doing that. He can't see any big bright lights in any of the people, but he does have spatial awareness. That mind belongs to the blonde boy sitting next to the target; that mind belongs to the shorter black guy standing across from the target… there we go. The tall teenager with the proud smirk on his face—one of his friends calls him Sebastian. He just looks so bigheaded and overconfident, Kurt decides instantly that he needs a little bit of humiliation and one big dose of fear.

Kurt smiles when Sebastian screams and crouches to the ground, hiding his face in his arms. A guy behind him laughs and grabs his shoulders, thinking it's a joke—until Sebastian throws him off and tries to crawl away, still screaming. His friends stay back nervously, getting in the way of Kurt's mental connection—but Kurt just concentrates even harder, making sure that Sebastian continues to experience terrible fear.

What Sebastian is scared of, Kurt doesn't really know. He can intensify the emotions, but he can't pull specific memories out. It doesn't really matter, since people pull out the memories themselves when they experience the emotions - but sometimes Kurt wishes he could read people's minds, just so he could know what Sebastian is so afraid of.

"Sunshine," Hatch says after about half a minute of Sebastian's panic attack, when a crowd has gathered around their helpless target. "Disable him. Kurt, keep it up."

Next to him, Sunshine focuses. It takes a while, but soon, Sebastian grabs his eyes as if he's gone blind. Then his voice dissolves into a silent hiss of air and it looks like he's passed out—but Kurt knows that Sunshine's just paralyzed him. Kurt can still feel his mind, conscious and active and full of nothing but fear. But Sunshine's blocked his senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—and she's advanced so much where she can go a step farther and block motor functions for a while.

Sebastian's still awake. He's terrified, lost and alone. Blind, deaf, unable to speak, unable to move, but still fully aware of the horrifying fear. It's got to be torture. Kurt almost feels sorry for him—but Hatch told him to, and Hatch knows what he's doing. Sebastian probably did something terrible to someone else, if Hatch thinks that Sebastian needs this kind of torture.

Hatch has him and Sunshine hold Sebastian underneath their power for another minute or so—it feels like forever, now that there are so many people crowded around the paralyzed target. It's hard to concentrate on just one person when there are so many other active brains around, but Sam's grip on Kurt's hand somehow helps him to focus on that one mind.

"Great job, guys," Hatch finally says. Even then, Kurt doesn't release until Hatch instructs, "Alright Sunshine, release. Kurt, calm him down."

Kurt thinks of Mercedes as he sucks the fear and worry right out of Sebastian's mind, instead replacing it with a settling calmness. Sebastian's arms and legs jerk back to life again as Sunshine releases him, but he instantly relaxes as Kurt fills his mind with peace.

"Good work," Hatch congratulates as they walk away from the public practice area towards the ice cream stand. The entire time, Sam doesn't release his hand.

Kurt doesn't mind.

* * *

><p>Hatch can't be serious. Doesn't he know that Kurt really likes Finn?<p>

So why is Hatch telling Kurt to make Finn feel guilty?

"There's something he's done that he doesn't feel guilty enough for. We just want to make sure that his feelings concerning the matter are appropriate," Hatch reasons.

"What did he do?"

Hatch's expression darkens. "That is not your business, Kurt," he warns. "Finn has his own life, and so do you. Don't ever ask that again."

Kurt nods instantly, immediately ashamed. "I'm sorry, Hatch."

Hatch pats his back. "Alright, Kurt. Remember, what we are doing is for everybody's benefit, including Finn. It might not make sense to you, but we know what we're doing. Trust us and make Finn feel remorse. Shame. Guilt."

Kurt mentally reaches through the hole in the wall into Finn's bedroom. He can't see Finn, and Finn doesn't know that there's a secret compartment next to the bed he's currently sleeping in. Kurt reaches into Finn's dreaming mind, able to feel electrical signals firing but unable to interpret what they mean. Is Finn having a good dream?

Whatever he's having, they're about to turn into nightmares… because the emotions that Kurt is going to make Finn feel won't be happy at all.

But Hatch told him to.

And Hatch knows best.

* * *

><p><span>Hatch's Observations<span>

Brittany Pierce:  
>- very low intelligence, though the other female Glows have done a good job of taking care of her. Has a tendency to run into closed doors; install soft pads on the walls of her room.<br>- cries easily. Be sure to show her lots of love.  
>- when alone, she has the tendency to pull out her hair in order to calm down—however, she forgets how to if her hair's tied up in a ponytail, and just tears up paper instead.<br>- sometimes forgets where the girls' hallway is; accidently walked down the boys' hallway and stumbled into Sam's room. Resulting panic attack caused her to tear every sheet of paper she saw, including Sam's drawings of his family.  
>- make sure that there is always a staff member or another female Glow with her.<br>- able to block the sensation of pain (NOTE: unable to _heal_ injuries; only able to block the pain emanating from an injury)  
>- thanks to Sam's observations, we've got her to the point where she can stimulate happy, carefree feelings<br>- accepted the family speech wholeheartedly, even to the point of reaching out to Finn and forgiving Sam after he hit her. She may be dim-witted, but she's not stupid.

Sunshine Corazon:  
>- very high intelligence and great memory. Be careful about what you say around her—and warn the researchers to not tell her more than necessary.<br>- very diligent and trains hard. Her mother taught her well.  
>- sunshine-y and cheerful exterior, even when she's internally sad—though she's very affected by the attitudes of people around her. Assign cheerful staff members to care for her.<br>- drawn to unhappy people—Sam especially  
>- her power is extremely similar to Brittany's—able to block senses (in order of expertise, from lowest to greatest: taste, scent, hearing, sight, touch.)<br>- thanks to Sam's observations, we have been able to train her to block motor capabilities, essentially paralyzing people  
>- definitely an agent who will participate in the recruitment of Artie Abrams<br>- will have to talk to her frequently; she has very high moral standards and may object to harming others

Finn Hudson:  
>- this kid is growing fast—and his electrical output is increasing as well. Technicians have prepared step-down batteries he can charge.<br>- he's healing much faster than any normal human as well. Increased electrical activity within his entire body a possible cause.  
>- training equipment is almost ready.<br>- he's also very clueless when it comes to Kurt. Still, if it brings Kurt and Puck closer together…  
>- he does realize that <em>he<em> was the one who set fire to Sam's house by missing the lightning rod.  
>- definitely affected by the Kurt-induced guilt trip; his self-esteem keeps dropping.<p>

Noah Puckerman:  
>- for a kid with an already low self-esteem, he has been able to redeem himself by training.<br>- able to cut through thin steel plates  
>- also taking martial arts classes<br>- despite his pack mentality, he learns much more when working alone  
>- make an effort to include him in the family—at this point, his only close friend is Finn.<p>

Sam Evans:  
>- his power has increased to the point where he remembers every mind he's ever seen. His electrical activity is off the charts. Though we would like to continue searching for more Glows, this kid needs to take a break.<br>- the high levels of electrical activity have also caused emotional unbalance. The death of his family altered his personality completely—very quiet and emotional. Somewhat stabilized after his confrontation with Brittany.  
>- Elgen family support mostly from Sunshine, and recently from Kurt. Brittany and Finn close behind.<p>

Mercedes Jones:  
>- I was unaware of how much Kurt's power influenced her last year—her personality has settled into a grudge-holding, rough yet loving girl in under a year. It is very possible that Kurt's calming effect kept her in her initial nervous state for over six months.<br>- her manipulation of her own electrical field to create magnetic fields is astounding. Researchers are running out of ways to advance her; she can guide darts to bullseye, insert keys into locks, create a storm of paperclips, suspend metal that weighs a hundred pounds into the air, and drink water from a metal cup without spilling any liquid. All with her mind. This girl is a powerhouse.  
>- definitely another agent to participate in the recruitment of Artie Abrams.<br>- and damn, she is a powerhouse of vocal talent. She sings like none other.  
>- in the absence of Kurt, immediately mothered Brittany. Due to Brittany's fear of Finn and Sam, she automatically took an offensive stance against the two boys, something that she hasn't resolved despite Brittany's reconciliation with both boys.<p>

Kurt Corcoran:  
>- I can't believe it's been five years since I first picked this boy up. I almost feel like he's my own kid.<br>- initiated the Elgen family pact right away, starting with Sam—good thing, because that boy really worries me.  
>- still hero-worships Finn<br>- obeyed even when I told him to use his power on Finn  
>- his mental link with Finn strengthens every time he emotionally influences Finn, which magnifies the power. It also syncs them to the point where Finn feels more at ease when Kurt's around. Investigate further.<p>

Since Sam's break from scouting, only Artie Abrams' exact location has been pinpointed. He has guitar lessons from a teacher in another town from 4:30- 5:30pm; his mother drives him there every week, from their home, over a small set of isolated hills, to the guitar teacher's house. Plan: recruit Artie in the hills.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Rant<em>

_Brittany's sister's name is derived from the actress, Heather Morris, who plays Brittany. Further clarifications: "wunderkind" is German for "child prodigy" and is actually used in the English language. Will is honing Finn into a human weapon by breaking him down emotionally and then building him back up as a superpowered tool; Finn's the one who caused the power surge in Brittany's school, and he also accidently set fire to Sam's original family's house. As for some people's inquiries into Britttana: Santana will not appear until much later in this story. Sorry! She arrives just in time to kick start some important events. None of the characters know who Sebastian is; Hatch chose him as a random person (and I chose him because he deserves some humiliation.) And will Elgen Academy really save the world? Or does Hatch have other plans? How are they going to recruit Artie?_

_Once again, I won't blame anybody if they've stopped reading… Three months is a really long time to wait. For those of you who are still here, welcome back! Happy Leap Day!_

**Words: **11,000  
><strong>New additions: <strong>Brittany and Sunshine  
><strong>Cameos:<br>**~ Mrs. Kendra is Terri Schuester's sister from the first season of _Glee_.  
>~ Lord Tubbington is the name of Brittany Pierce's fat cat.<br>~ Sebastian is pretty much Season 3's new Sue Sylvester; pure evilness.  
><strong>Total POVs:<strong> Brittany, Sunshine, Finn, Puck, Sam, Mercedes, Kurt, Hatch


	6. Nine Years Old

**Arthur Abrams**

* * *

><p>The rocky landscape blends into one blur of brown color as Mrs. Abrams drives her son back from his guitar lesson. Artie exhales, fogging up the glass of his car window, and proceeds to draw stick figures. Running people. People with legs that work and carry them around to wherever they want.<p>

It's been two years since the car accident; his mom had a seizure while driving with him on the highway. Artie lost the use of his legs that day—but he gained something else. That day, Artie opened his eyes and looked at the sky.

His parents said he was hallucinating. There's no way he could have seen the sky in a windowless hospital room. The doctors said that a traumatic accident might cause children to have mental problems or stress disorders. Artie shut up after that. Two years of not telling anyone about his problem, not wanting to be called "retarded."

But his problem still exists. He can't really switch it off; all he can do is squeeze his X-ray vision down to a tiny area in the middle of his eyesight. He can't look directly at his mom's face without staring straight through her head.

What's even worse is that, even though he can see through solid objects and read signs that are hundreds of feet away, he's farsighted. His vision is too blurry to read a book directly in front of him.

Three disablements—paraplegic, farsighted, and a useless superpower.

But he's made the most he can out of life. He's pretty awesome at Halo. He can do tricks in his wheelchair and still play dodgeball. He's learning to play the guitar. He still has friends.

There are just times when he wishes that he could run again, and live a life where he could stare directly into people's eyes, instead of _through_ them.

The fog on the car window fades away, erasing the simple stick figures. Just like that. There's no technology that could ever make him walk again. Glasses help his farsightedness, but nothing can make that superpowered hole in his eyesight go away.

It's getting dark; Artie can see less and less of the rocky hills outside as night sets in. Something different catches his eyes though—there are three glowing lights on top of a hill that Artie's never noticed before. They pulse, as if they're living heartbeats of light. As he continues to stare at them, the world seems to fade away—everything but those three pinpoints of light.

They're special.

He barely hears his mother scream in terror. Frightened, he whirls around—the second he takes his eyes off the bright lights, though, he's plunged into complete darkness. He can't see or hear anything and it's terrifying. His body shifts as the car jerks underneath him. His mom is losing control of the car. Is she having a seizure? She's been taking medications and undergoing treatment. She shouldn't be having one again. She hasn't had a seizure… since the accident.

He tries to look in her direction, even though all he can see is black. He can't even feel the seatbelt strap on his chest anymore. He tries to touch her and make sure she's alright, but, for some reason, he can't do it. He can't raise his arm. It's exactly like trying to move his legs—he knows they're attached to his body, but he can't move them.

Artie panics. He's not unconscious—he can still think. Did his mom crash the car? Is he in a coma? Will he be stuck in his own mind for the rest of his life, unable to control his body, disconnected from all of his senses?

It's worse than being unable to move his legs. If he can't move his entire body, Artie doesn't want to live anymore.

* * *

><p><em>Beep. Beep. Beep.<em>

It sounds like a heartbeat. Like those three pulsing lights he saw right before he lost consciousness.

Before the accident.

Artie's eyes snap open.

He's not in a hospital. He's sitting in someone else's room, in somebody else's bed. In confusion, he expands his X-ray vision so that he can find out who else is in the house. There are bedrooms on either side of the room he's in. There's a boy with a Mohawk playing a video game in one room, but Artie's attention is drawn to the people behind him, hiding in a secret compartment behind the TV. They're working with equipment hooked up to the TV… are they manipulating the game?

_Ding!_

Artie's eyes flick over the noise the door makes. He sees the man standing behind the door before it actually slides open—a man in a sweater vest. "Good, good," he says the moment he steps in. "You're awake. How are you feeling?"

"Where am I? What happened? Where's my mom?"

The man sits next to Artie's bed. "Your mother is doing fine—you, however, we were worried about." The man's expression become serious. "Your state of health was so critical that your parents agreed to admit you to a special program funded by Elgen."

Elgen. Artie remembers: the first time he got in the accident, his dad and mom argued for weeks about this special program offered by this Elgen company. The company claimed that they could get his legs working again, and Artie really wanted to go… but his mom thought they were lying scammers and told his dad that Artie would never, ever leave his family's side. They were going to take care of him forever.

When Artie was seven, he was okay with that. Now that he's nine, though, he's beginning to resent it a little. His mom won't even let him sleep over at his friends' house. She's too protective. That, and she took away that one chance he had to get his legs back.

"You can fix my legs, right?" Artie exclaims eagerly.

"Yes, that is something we can offer you—but only after we stabilize the rest of your body."

Artie glances around. "So this _is_ a hospital?"

"Yes… and much more. It's very much like a boarding school. You see, treatment will take at least a year, so you will be living and attending school here; so this here is _your_ room. There are other children here who are all exactly like you."

Artie glances through the wall at the Mohawk boy in the next room. "Disabled?" he asks doubtfully. There's no wheelchair in that boy's room.

The man suddenly grabs Artie's hand, his eyes bright and passionate. "No, Artie. Nobody here is disabled, and neither are you. What you have—it's a gift. All the children are here because they're gifted."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Artie mumbles quietly. This X-ray vision is a disability. It puts holes in his vision that shouldn't be there. Nobody should know about it, because they'd make fun of him for it.

The man just shakes his head. "You have an ability that no one else has, Artie," he says simply. "Just like Brittany." He leans backwards, revealing a girl who's been standing in the doorway. Artie wonders how he didn't notice her.

And then his heart stops—because his X-ray vision doesn't work on her. He _can't_ see through her body. He can stare straight into her striking blue eyes. This is the first time in two years he's been able to look at someone directly, and it takes his breath away.

He wants to be here, if only to look at her without an X-ray hole in her body.

"Hi, I'm Brittany," she pipes brightly. She points at his wheelchair. "Hatch says I'm going to help you forget how to drive that thing."

Artie turns towards the man, Hatch. He's slightly disappointed when the X-ray hole appears in Hatch's body—but a single glance towards Brittany's X-ray-proof body brightens his mood again. Maybe he'll be able to see all the 'special' children like this.

"Can I meet everybody else?"

* * *

><p><strong>Brittany Pierce<strong>

* * *

><p>The new boy is different.<p>

For one thing, his legs don't work, so he has to drive a chair with wheels around. But Hatch says that she can help fix him!

The biggest thing, though, is that the boy won't stop staring at her. It makes her feel kind of nervous—not the scary kind of nervous she gets when Sam or Finn get too close (despite being part of the family, Brittany still remembers the day Sam pulled her away from Heather into the car), but a shy, heart-pounding sort of nervous.

It makes her feel happy.

So she drops whatever she's doing—even if it means ditching Mercedes and Sunshine—when Hatch calls her to the laboratory. Artie looks like he's in a lot of pain, but the moment she enters the room, he just lights up—his eyes shine when he sees her and he smiles at her and just keeps on looking at her, even after she reaches into his mind and shuts off that pain switch.

"Do your legs work yet?" she asks eagerly.

Artie looks down at his leg. It doesn't move. "No," he sighs. "Hatch says it'll take a year before I can even try to walk—he says I haven't used my legs for so long, the muscles won't be strong enough."

Brittany plops down on a chair next to his bed. There's a needle stuck in his arm. It's like he's getting a shot, except the doctor forgot to take out the needle. Brittany still remembers all the times Nurse Beiste stuck those sharp needles in her arm—it still terrifies her. "Are you scared?" she asks timidly, pointing to the needle that Nurse Beiste probably forgot to remove.

Artie just looks at her. "If it means that someday—even if it takes two years—I'll be able to run again, then I'll do it. I'm not scared." He suddenly grabs her hand. "Not when you're here."

Brittany almost explodes with happiness.

* * *

><p>Sam ducks before the water balloon even reaches him.<p>

"What was that for, Brittany?" Sam yells, looking straight up at her. "Wait… how did you get up there? I thought you couldn't climb trees."

Brittany furrows her eyebrows. "How did you know it was me?" she asks right back, resting lazily on the thick wooden branch.

"I saw you," Sam grins, tapping his head. "I saw your Glow."

Brittany points up at the brilliant sun. "I glow in the dark, but it's not dark."

Sam grins even wider. "We all glow in the dark, Britt-Britt. It's our powers. But I can see you wherever you are, no matter where you are." He closes his eyes. "Right now, Puck is in the training room. Artie's in his hospital room. Mercedes is really mad, so she's crushing pop cans and throwing them in the recycling bin. Kurt's helping Finn with his homework—did you know their big bright lights are connected? They have a bunch of little light strings connecting their big bright lights together, and every month another one forms."

"What if their big bright lights get too tangled up in together?" Brittany wonders. "Then they'd never be able to get away from each other, and you'd have this big Finn-Kurt thing." Brittany thinks a little bit harder. "We'd have to call them Furt."

Sam cracks up laughing. "It sounds like fart!"

Brittany giggles too. "Furt fart!"

"So yeah, I saw you in the tree, and I could sort of read your mind. I knew what you were thinking, at least. But I can't get much deeper. Why did you throw that balloon at me?"

Brittany wiggles down the tree branch until she reaches the main trunk. "I can't tell you," she says stubbornly. "Mercedes told me not to tell anybody."

Sam looks really sad. "Okay, Britt-Britt," he says. "Then I won't ask."

* * *

><p>Brittany doesn't know why, but Mercedes seems to be angry all the time.<p>

When Sunshine runs over to Sam to show him the bright yellow scarf she's been knitting, Mercedes just scowls.

"Your scarf's prettier," Brittany comforts. "It has like a bajillion different colors. Sam would definitely choose yours over Sunshine's."

To Brittany's surprise, Mercedes immediately tosses her crochet needles to the ground is disgust. "Then I'll knit the ugliest scarf in the world, just so I don't have to be anywhere near him," the dark-skinned girl growls.

"But you sort of have to be near him," Brittany says, slightly confused. "We're a family."

"He might be my brother, but that doesn't mean I can't hate him." Mercedes nails her with a furious glare, one that makes Brittany more scared than she is of Finn (because Finn just seems so serious and angsty all the time; at least Sam is happy and talkative.) "Don't you hate Sam too? He's the one who took you away from your family!"

"But my family is here," Brittany answers simply. She grabs Mercedes' hand. "You and Sunshine are here. And Artie and Kurt and Puck. Even Sam and Finn. I love you all."

Mercedes' expression just darkens at the mention of Finn, but it softens when she grips Brittany's hand. "And we love you too," she says slowly.

Sunshine plops down excitedly next to Brittany, dragging Sam down with her. Brittany flinches before mentally reminding herself that Sam is a fun, happy guy. He's like a boy-version of herself. He's a good guy. "We're going to teach Sam how to knit!" Sunshine chirps, pulling an extra set of needles out of her bag.

"Don't worry, Sam," Brittany encourages. She holds up her tangle of knots. "Knitting is so easy, even I can do it."

She concentrates so hard on knitting her rainbow scarf that she doesn't notice Mercedes leave furiously.

* * *

><p><strong>Sunshine Corazon<strong>

* * *

><p>She has to keep it up. She can't even let anybody know what she's feeling inside. Every day, she sees what it does to Finn.<p>

The crushing despair. The self-hating. The depressing atmosphere it makes, and how just being around other people makes them depressed too.

There's already too much sadness in the world. Even in Elgen Academy, Finn's sadness makes Puck quieter and makes Kurt gloomier. And when Kurt gets too sad, everybody feels it. So whenever Sunshine's playing with Brittany or Mercedes or Sam, she pretends to be happy so she can make them happy too.

But when she's alone in her room, she cries.

Because she killed Artie's mom.

She almost didn't want to do it, but Hatch needed her to. Hatch said that they needed to fix Artie so he could help more people with his power, and that her mom was insane and stupid for keeping him hidden. So when Hatch told Kurt to make the mom scared for her life and told Sunshine to knock both Artie and his mom unconscious, she did it. (She can do that now, but only by training for months—she shuts off all their senses first, and the brain loses consciousness a couple minutes after that.)

Then Mercedes shoved against something invisible and the car_ fell off the edge of a cliff._

Some off the Elgen servants pulled Artie out of the car before it fell, but Artie's mom… the car exploded when it hit the bottom of the hill.

And Sunshine knocked Artie's mom unconscious, so that she couldn't save herself.

Sunshine doesn't know Mercedes' power or what she did to the car. But Sunshine doesn't blame other people; she knows that she's just as responsible for Artie's mom's death.

She went to talk to Hatch about it; he comforted her but let her know that, even though he told her to do it, she was the one who performed the action.

It's all her fault. She didn't have to listen to Hatch, but she did anyways. Why? Because he gives her everything she wants and she actually has friends here, instead of competitors? Because the education here is the best education she could ever have? Because she wants to be a successful, independent woman, and, in order to get there, she has to attend Elgen Academy and do everything Hatch tells her to?

No… she obeyed Hatch because secretly, deep inside herself, she wanted to. She likes that she had power over people. Maybe all those years ago, when she'd blinded all those girls on the swings, she'd been able to convince herself that she didn't want to hurt people. Even when she was in the middle of an academic competition, she told herself that she would always be nice to her competitors—but now she's finding out that all this time, she's always been better than all of them.

Apex predator. That's what Ms. Hannah, the teacher that Hatch has hired, tells them every day. They're apex predators, above normal humans. They can run faster, last longer, and lift more weight than other kids their age. Nine years old, and Puck can bench eighty pounds. Nine years old, and Kurt can run a mile in seven minutes.

Nine years old, and Sunshine can kill a person effortlessly.

No. She still doesn't want to hurt people (Sam and his constantly lonely, injured expression, his _need_ for her companionship, comes to mind). She wants to make them happy.

But at the same time, she feels a strange happiness whenever she uses her power. She was made to wield this power. By not using it, she's not living up to her _full_ potential. She's not as successful as she could be.

But it hurts people. It can actually _kill_ them.

Sunshine doesn't know what to think.

She's a murderer.

And she might like it.

* * *

><p>Sunshine scoots between Sam and Brittany when they sit down for dinner. It's just a habit; now that Brittany has fully embraced her family, she's comfortable (enough) around Sam and Finn. The problem is, Artie eats dinner with them and Brittany always wants to sit next to him… so Sunshine figures that if she sits on the same side of the table as Artie, then they won't make eye contact often.<p>

And as long as she keeps her eyes on her plate, she definitely won't make eye contact with him.

"Sunny?"

That's Brittany, asking another question. With her eyes concentrated on her salad, Sunshine replies, "Yeah?"

"Artie wants to know if you can really sing."

Sunshine's breath catches in her throat, but she manages to stammer out, "N-n-not really."

Brittany goes into pout mode. Sunshine can _hear _it. "Liar!" Brittany exclaims. "You sing in the shower all the time. You're really good."

"Mercedes is better."

"But Mercedes is too busy throwing broccoli at Sam's head," Brittany says seriously. "She keeps missing, though."

Sunshine can't help it—she glances over at her neighbor, Sam. He's talking energetically to Kurt, weaving a story out of thin air. The emotion and passion in his voice just brings the experience to life.

And right across from him, Mercedes tosses her unwanted vegetables into Sam's plate.

"Mercedes will have time later to sing," Sunshine answers absentmindedly, stealing some broccoli from Sam's plate. He doesn't like it very much either, so Sunshine's just helping him out.

"But we want to do it right after dinner," Brittany whines.

Sunshine glances back at Brittany—and looks away just as quickly, because Artie's looking at her too and _she killed his mom_ and that's why he's here. "Do what after dinner?" she murmurs.

Artie speaks up. "I'll go grab my guitar and you'll sing and Brittany will dance!" he declares, his eyes dancing. "We'll do it in the common room so everybody can watch. It'll be just like a performance, except we're just doing it for fun."

For fun. He thinks this is just a fun adventure. He doesn't know that the only reason why he's here is because she killed his mommy.

She notices that even Brittany has noticed her attitude change. No longer sunshiny. Just dark and overcast, close to rain.

Sunshine wills her tears to evaporate as she pushes her chair back. "I can't," she stammers, jumping to her feet before remembering her manners. "Hatch, can I be excused?" she chokes, drawing everybody's attention.

Hatch just looks at her, evaluating her and her actions. "Are you okay, Sunshine?"

She blurts the first thing that comes to her mind. "I need to pee."

Hatch's expression is friendly and kind, but his eyes are sharp and calculating. It scares her. "Alright."

He knows. He knows her shame, her doubt, and the small rebellion rising within her even as she tries to hold it back. Because she can't take it anymore—it hurts too much to keep blaming herself. A secret part of her resents Hatch, even as she blames herself for disabling and killing Artie's mom.

Sunshine almost runs from the room.

* * *

><p>Greater purpose. That's the reason why she's here: her power can help the world, and Elgen's going to help her do that. Everything she does here is for a greater purpose.<p>

At least, that's what Hatch keeps saying.

Sunshine's not sure anymore. Hatch told her a year ago that they were doing research and they'd tell her how they were using the children's powers to benefit everybody else. Since then, they haven't told her _anything_. That makes her nervous—without knowledge about her present situation, there's no way Sunshine can predict where her future is headed. They made her kill a person! Just so Artie could come here. Hatch said that Artie's arrival would save millions of people's lives, and that one death to get Artie here was nothing.

Sunshine doesn't know what to think. She flops down on her bed, trying to organize her thoughts. She needs more information… but Hatch isn't going to give her any. It just makes her suspicious and nervous and a little afraid. And she can't deal with Artie and his happiness when she knows that he lost his mom (just like Sunshine lost her own mom when she was deported last year).

Music starts to drift down the girls' hallway—guitar plus drums, and then Mercedes' beautiful voice. So Brittany and Artie decided to perform without her—and they even recruited Finn and Mercedes. Mercedes doesn't even like Finn, but they're all performing together.

_I must become a lion-hearted girl ready for a fight  
>B<em>_efore I make the final sacrifice.  
><em>_We raise it up, this offering, we raise it up…  
><em>_This is a gift, it comes with a price  
><em>_Who is the lamb and who is the knife?  
><em>_Midas is king and he holds me so tight  
><em>_And turns me to gold in the sunlight_

She may seem like a lion with a powerful gift—but that gift tears other people apart. It blinds people, isolates them from the world, even knock them unconscious. And every time she uses it, it hurts her. She has the heart of a lamb—weak, easily wounded, unable to live without support. She's dying slowly. Artie… the pain she caused him, and he doesn't even know. And Hatch and his… his lies.

It's that rebellious part of her again, trying to blame other people. No, it's all her fault. It was her decision to kill Artie's mom. Besides, Hatch is like the dad of their family. If Sunshine doubts Hatch's and Elgen's purposes—if she doesn't believe that their purpose here is for education and protection from people who might be afraid of their "gifts"… then what is there to believe?

Is Hatch using them? Is Elgen collecting an army of "gifted" children?

Her bedroom door slides opens suddenly, scaring Sunshine out of her wits. Did Hatch just hear her treacherous thoughts? She instantly hates herself. Hatch has nothing to do with this. She was the one who decided to kill Artie's mom. Elgen is not abusing her and her power. Elgen's only purpose is to protect and benefit the children, and to use their powers to benefit the world.

Nurse Beiste stands in the doorway. "Sunshine, it's time for a shot," the stocky nurse says curtly, some straps of material in her hands. "Lie down."

Sunshine's fear only increases when Nurse Beiste ties the straps around her body so she can't move, but she takes deep breaths. It's just like another academic competition; when she's nervous, she can calm herself down with relaxation techniques. She closes her eyes, breathes in… breathes out… breathes in…

And almost screams when Nurse Beiste jabs the needle into her arm. She bites it back at the last moment—but the stuff that was injected into her body _burns_. It hurts. It shouldn't be in her body. Is this what Hatch wants? Does he really want what's best for her?

Does Hatch really to use her to save the world? Or does he just want to use her?

She really doesn't know what to think. She's not sure she wants to know the answer.

The burning sensation makes its way up into her head and she can't think anymore.

* * *

><p><strong>Finn Hudson<strong>

* * *

><p>"<em>Finn!"<em>

_Her skin is perfectly smooth in some places, charred and burnt and blistering red in others. Her face is permanently frozen in shock._

_Finn stands in the middle of the swimming pool, surrounded by his mother and two older sisters. Blue arcs of electricity leap from his body, jumping around the surface of the aqua liquid before surging into the corpses of his dead family._

"_No," Finn chokes, trying to move towards his mother. But the water around him seems to thicken, holding him in place as her burnt body sinks underneath the ripples. "Oh my god, Mom… please, no…"_

"_Why, Finn?" It's Corrie's body, horribly disfigured. Her swimsuit has been burned off, revealing her electrocution wound: bloody red skin ringed by scorched white scar tissue. A little trail of blood leaks from the corner of her mouth as she stares at him with her dead, dark eyes. "Finn, why?"_

"_I didn't know," Finn sobs, still trying to move forward. His mom's body is sinking out of sight. "I didn't know. I couldn't…"_

"_But you did," Monty accuses. "You knew all along. You were just hiding it from us."_

"_I didn't want to hurt you," Finn whimpers._

_Corrie's lips curl in disgust. "You killed us, Finn."_

"_I didn't…"_

"_You killed us, Finn," his sisters say together lifelessly. And then the skin flakes off their limbs as the bloody burns spread, dissolving their bodies into black ashes. Tears stream down Finn's face as the bodies of his family sink into the depths of his despair._

Finn jerks awake as his body hits the floor. He got too tangled in his blankets and just fell out of bed.

He's still crying.

It's the same dream. The same dream every night for the past year.

Dream or memory? At this point, it almost doesn't matter. The dreams are so vivid that they might as well be real experiences. The expression of shock on his mom's dead face. The disgusting burns that tear his sisters apart. All because of him.

Maybe his family really isn't dead… but in his mind, Finn's killed them so many times that he can't take it anymore.

He's a monster. He electrocuted his entire family just because he was too stupid. Too untrained. Even now, at nine years old, Finn can't control the surges of electricity from his body. Here at Elgen, he doesn't have surprise explosions anymore; daily releases of electricity prevent him from turning into a ticking time bomb.

He's a monster.

He's stupid. Worthless.

He's a murderer.

He deserves to die.

Only his new family—the family at Elgen—keeps him alive. Hatch is always there to talk to him and give him awesome stuff. Kurt always comes whenever Finn needs help, which happens a lot. And Kurt smiles all the time. He always makes Finn feel a little happier about his life—someone who doesn't care if Finn's a worthless monster. And then there's Puck.

Puck's actually pretty awesome—he really knows how to fight. He says he's been training for about a year now, and that someday, he wants to go back to his old neighborhood and repay Zizes for sitting on him. But anyways, awesome/exciting/painful-but-funny things always happen whenever Puck's around.

A small smile slips onto Finn's face as he recalls some memories of their adventures together over the past year; the happiness inside of him pushes his nightmares away. Last year, they crawled through the vent system to get to the kitchen at midnight, only Finn fell through a hole into Kurt's room and hurt his shoulder and broke a leg.

There was that time when he and Sam and Puck snuck onto the roof and threw fruit off the edge of the building, as far as they could, but then Finn accidently beaned Sunshine with an orange—so she chucked the banana she was eating straight back at them and hit Puck in the eye.

A couple months ago, Puck taught Finn how to climb a tree at the public park; the only problem was that Finn couldn't climb back down, so he sat in the tree for an hour until a fireman arrived with a fire-truck-with-a-ladder and pulled him out of the branches like a stuck kitty.

And then a couple weeks ago, when Hatch took them all out paintballing for the first time (except for Artie; Hatch says he's not well enough to go outside yet)—all the girls ganged up on Sam until he recruited the rest of the guys' help. They stopped when Mercedes started crying though. Finn's surprised Brittany didn't break down first, but the blonde girl was fascinated with her newly colored shirt.

They're his family now. Finn doesn't like to think about his original family; he can't help but choke on the guilt and shame whenever he does. So he embraces his Elgen family—Hatch and Kurt, Sam and Sunshine, Puck and Artie, Brittany… and even Mercedes. Even the little black girl who hates him for no reason.

As hungry as Finn always is, sometimes he doesn't want to eat dinner with the family—because he sits next to Kurt and Mercedes sits directly across from them. Which means that the entire time, she's staring murderously at him (or tossing slimy spinach into his plate. Seriously, that's gross.)

And she's tossing her broccoli at Sam's plate! She's getting rid of all her vegetables—how does Hatch not catch this?

"Hatch!" Finn almost shouts when Mercedes flings another glob of spinach at him—he swears she's aiming for his head this time. "Hatch! I wasn't going to tattle, but I've had enough of this! Mercedes has been throwing her veggies at me all week!"

"I HAVE NOT," Mercedes thunders, her powerful voice easily overpowering his. "Finn just doesn't want to eat his own veggies."

"She lies," Puck blares. "She's a fat liar! And she'll get even fatter if she keeps on giving her broccoli to Sam!"

Mercedes' face gets really red—and that's saying something, since it's hard to see color changes in her chocolate-colored skin.

Meanwhile, Sam murmurs, "They weren't making broccoli babies while I was talking to Sunny?" while staring at the mound of veggies on his plate in confusion.

Just before Mercedes goes all chocolate thunder on their asses, Hatch raises a hand and they all shut up immediately.

"Mercedes, eat your vegetables," Hatch scolds. "Haven't you noticed? I've been watching you all week."

An awkward pause settles over them before Mercedes realizes that Hatch is waiting for an answer. "…Yeah, I noticed," she admits. "But I was just playing! I thought that if you didn't stop me, that meant you were okay with it. They're just vegetables—"

"—And an important part of your diet, structured specifically for _you_ and your power," Hatch finishes. "We're giving you the nutrients you need the most through that spinach and broccoli. Sam and Finn don't need it as much as you do."

"Yes, Hatch," Mercedes mumbles.

"This goes for all of you," Hatch announces. "Watch yourselves and your actions. Make sure you're doing the right thing."

Finn notices Sunshine jump suddenly, as if Hatch's sentence struck a particular chord in her. It's something different—for the past two weeks, ever since she ran away from the dinner table, Sunshine hasn't been Sunshine. She's stopped laughing or smiling or talking to people, like Sam or Brittany. She just walks around like a zombie, does her homework, and disappears for training or missions. Finn hasn't really thought about it too much, but Sam is really concerned—he tries to talk to her all the time now, even if she avoids his eyes and replies with none of her usual sunshiny-ness. As a result, without her bright attitude, the general mood of Elgen Academy has dropped. Mercedes is angry all the time, Sam needs people to talk to, and guilt knocks Finn to the ground every night. Guilt, shame, and remorse. That terrible nightmare suffocates him every night.

Because their Sunshine is gone.

After dinner, Finn sidles up next to Sunshine. Might as well try to cheer her up—and maybe if she does, so will everyone else!

"Hey Sunny!" Finn chirps. Ugh, that feels so weird. Ever since the nightmare started last year, Finn's spent most of his time being angsty. It's been a while since he's actually tried to smile. "Any plans for tonight?"

Sam's eyes brighten. "Oo, Sunshine's still teaching me how to knit! Maybe—"

Puck shoves his way between Finn and Sunshine. "No way are we doing that," he growls.

Sam takes this in stride. "Okay, Puck! What do you think we should do?"

Their party increases yet again when Brittany leaps onto Puck's back, wrapping her arms and legs around his torso. "Piggyback race!" she squeals, slapping Puck's chest. "GO, GO, GO!"

Sam grabs Sunshine's arms and pretty much slings her over his shoulders. She yelps in surprise as he begins to drag her forward before reluctantly wrapping her legs around his waist. "What are we doing?" Sunshine mutters almost sleepily. Maybe she's been sleepwalking all this time, Finn wonders.

With Puck and Sam speeding down the halls with screaming girls on their backs, Finn glances around for the nearest girl. Mercedes is walking a couple feet behind him, but the moment his eyes land on her, she glares at him murderously. Like, so violently murderous, that any moment lasers might burst out of her eyes and tear him to shreds.

Still, maybe he could try…? He smiles tentatively. "Hey Merce—"

"I'd rather hump a mound of slimy-spinach-covered broccoli plants than jump on your back," Mercedes snarls. "You'd probably drop me anyways and then accidently run me over with your stinky huge feet. What are you, Bigfoot's little brother? I'm surprised the crazy people haven't found you yet—you cry so much, there's pretty much a river dripping out of your bedroom, down the hall and into the common room. Or maybe you're peeing yourself at night? You're such a wimp anyways. Always screaming '_Mommy, please no, don't Mommy!'_ and waking Kurt in the middle of the night. You miss your mommy changing your diaper?"

Finn sees red. He steps forward. He doesn't notice the wave of blue electricity that crackles down his skin, sizzling off the tips of his fingers. He just… he just…

_His mother's shocked face oozes blood as her burnt, electrocuted skin crumbles into dust. He can see her bleached skull… and then it, too, dissolves into ash, until she disappears completely._

_She's gone._

The image fades away before it can totally consume him. Somebody's calling his name.

"Finn! Finn!"

It's a happy voice. Kurt.

Finn blinks. He can't remember what he was just thinking of. He just feels very… calm. Maybe a little happy?

Kurt suddenly hops on his back, startling him as the smaller boy's legs wrap around his waist. "W…what are you doing?" Finn stutters.

"We have to catch up!" Kurt yelps. "Puck and Sam left a long time ago! Com'on, we'll be left behind!"

Finn shakes his head. He's sure he was doing something a moment ago, but he can't think about it—something huge and soft and comforting blocks his train of thought. It's almost like somebody shoved it there, just so he can't think about it. But at the same time, he doesn't want to think about it.

So he doesn't—he wraps his arms around Kurt's legs to support him and sprints off after his friends.

Mercedes is left behind.

* * *

><p><strong>Noah Puckerman<strong>

* * *

><p>He opens his fist and a flower of fire blooms in his palm. Literally. Small flames resembling petals flutter to the ground before dissipating into smoke.<p>

Brittany giggles. "Do it again!"

Puck closes his fist, extinguishing the flame. Then he opens it again, letting bursts of flame spit out in all directions. When he flattens his usual fiery blade, it sort of looks like a flower petal; if he does it fast enough, all the flashy blades coming out all at once almost looks like a flower. A small, flashy fire right in the middle of his hand.

It's useless. It can't do anything, like burn through metal or somebody's skin. But Brittany really, really likes it, and it makes Puck feel good. All the other kids at Elgen leave him out of everything—even Finn, who's depressed all the time nowadays. He complained until Puck told him to be a man and suck it up.

Finn started talking to Kurt a lot more after that.

So Puck threw himself into his training. Forget about school; forget trying to hang out with Finn. They're still best friends… Puck keeps telling himself that. Even though Finn seems to like being around Kurt now more than he does around Puck. Even though Finn hardly talks to Puck, though he always has something to talk about with Kurt. It almost makes Puck want to break something—it seems like Finn and Kurt are always together.

Now, Puck doesn't have somebody to help him wreak havoc—Sam's wimpy and clingy and is obsessed with snapping Sunshine out of her stupor, Brittany's so dumb that she forgets how to open her bedroom door sometimes (it's an electric slider door, and you just have to push a button), and Mercedes…

Actually, Mercedes scares Puck more than Zizes ever did.

She trains just as much as he does now. Since Brittany spends a lot of time helping Artie recover and Kurt is always with Finn and Sam's always around Sunshine (and Mercedes HATES Finn and Sam for no reason), Mercedes doesn't have anybody to hang out with either.

They train in adjacent rooms. Hatch still wants them to be secretive about their powers, even though they all pretty much know everybody else's powers. Kurt changes emotions, but only when Hatch tells him to—so Kurt making Finn want to hang out with him is out of the question. Finn shoots blue electricity out of his hands. Sam sees their powers, and as of a couple months ago, he's been able identify them without even looking at them—like, if Puck tosses a water balloon at Sam behind his back, Sam will dodge without even looking. Brittany and Sunshine… uh, Puck's not really sure what they do, actually.

But Mercedes is a beast when it comes to magnetism.

Even just standing outside the training building, Puck can hear her roar in anger as she tosses around things that thunk and crash and make loud crunching noises. Probably cars or something huge and heavy. Maybe she imagines Sam on the ground and crushes him with all the cars she can grab or something.

He stops for a moment, just listening to her scream. It seriously freaks him out, but at the same time…

No. He does _not_ like her. She's stupid. And she's always mad at Finn for no reason. Puck can see why Sam might annoy her; Sam just wants to be with everybody, all the time. Except when Sunshine's around.

Speaking of Sam…

He hears the awkward shuffling feet behind him and asks without turning around, "What do you want?"

"Nothing," Sam stutters. "You were just staring at that wall for the past five minutes, spacing out."

"I tried poking you in the belly," Brittany pipes up, a bit farther away. "But you were too busy listening to Mercedes making man noises."

Puck angrily whirls around. "Shut up!"

"You can't make me!" Brittany trills, grabbing Sam's hand and dancing away. "Not unless you do that pretty fire flower."

A look of excitement flashes across Sam's face. "Flowers?"

"I was _not_ making flowers," Puck snarls. Flowers were for girls. "I work them."

From the clueless look in their eyes, they don't know what he means.

That's good, because Puck doesn't really know either. A client told him that working flowers was his mom's job, though, so it probably had something to do with her red dresses and smelly perfume and paint-like makeup she smeared all over her face late at night.

"So work up a flower," Sam counters.

"They're really pretty," Brittany encourages. "I like them."

"No," Puck says roughly, shouldering past them. The useless fire display was meant to be for Brittany's eyes only. If he let Sam see, the chatterbox would tell _everybody_ about how Puck could make pretty flowers. And that would be humiliating. It'd be like coating his face in Holly Holliday makeup.

Sam catches Puck's shoulder and, with surprising force, forces Puck to face them. "Pleeeeeas—"

Puck punches Sam in the gut and the firm grip on his shoulder instantly releases. As a parting shot, he spits, "You're such a girl," before stalking off.

There. That ought to make Sam leave him alone for a while. Hatch will probably ground him for the weekend, but if it means that Sam won't spread news about that stupid fire flower, then Puck's alright.

He should have never shown that trick to Brittany. Even if it made her happy.

* * *

><p>Puck, Sunshine, and Artie shuffle along with the small group of elementary kids, posing as students of a nearby school. Since this bank tour is a district-wide field trip and is composed of at least five different elementary schools, nobody questions the presence of three kids they've never seen before. Artie gets a couple looks, since he's still in a wheelchair; his therapy hasn't reached the level yet where he can walk by himself.<p>

He can stand though, so Puck guesses that's cool. After all, it must be pretty cool to stand after so many years of not being able to use his legs.

Puck's just vibrating with energy—Nurse Beiste stuck him with a needle before they left Elgen to ride the school bus over, and now Puck can't stay still. Hopefully the tour guide will move along quicker so they can get down to action.

Sunshine, on the other hand, seems really detached and dreamy. Nurse Beiste also injected something into her and it made her sleepy and nod a lot at everything Hatch instructed them to do. Even though Hatch is a pretty cool guy, Puck can't help but feel that the shot towards Sunshine wasn't all too awesome.

"Our bank is one of the few left in the _world_ that still has a circular vault door," the guide is saying. "They used to represent security in the 20th century but have fallen out of favor recently, because circular doors are really hard to make and they tend to decay faster. I can still assure you that the money being kept in here is safe, though."

Artie looks at the door, then whispers to Sunshine, "There's another door behind the first one."

Sunshine nods absentmindedly, but then she says something smart and Puck thinks that maybe the drug did something else to her mind. "The door's just for show, then," she concludes to Puck. "The real work will be the second door."

"The second door is square," Artie says, squinting at the first round door. "It looks really thick. I can sort of see what it's made of through my peripheral vision…"

Puck doesn't know what perifer-wha is, but he keeps his pride intact and doesn't ask.

"…There's steel and then concrete with steel bars running through it," Artie finishes.

"There's a lock," Sunshine reminds Artie. Hatch told them that the doorknobs and hinges were usually the weakest spot of the door. Puck's palms begin to heat up as his excitement rises. Finally!

The huge group of elementary students begins to walk away. A teacher chaperone behind them herds the stragglers along with their group, but Sunshine does something tricky with her power and the teacher doesn't seem to see them.

Puck almost whistles. For such a bubbly ball of sunshine, Sunny can get pretty serious.

…Especially after her hospital sessions with Nurse Beiste.

Puck shakes this random thought away. Focus on the task at hand.

"The hinges on the first door are really weak," Artie says.

"If Puck cuts the hinges, the door will fall off and make a really, really loud sound," Sunshine whispers as the last of the school group disappears around a corner. The field trip kids are taking a circular route around the bank, so they won't be back. Sunshine has problems using her power on more than five people at once.

"Just tell me where to start burning," Puck says eagerly, showing Artie his hot red palms. The right one spits out a little electricity, which cackles and sends tiny little sparks into the air.

Artie looks around a couple more times. "This door is just for show," he repeats. "Looking at the electronics… you could just pump a lot of electricity into the security system, and that would automatically unlock the door."

"You sure?" Sunshine says dubiously. "That's not the way Hatch said…"

"Hatch was talking about the _real_ door. The second one," Artie answers. "This first door is just to keep sneaky civilians out." He brings out a little laser pointer. A red dot appears on the wall next to the door. "Start there and electrocute the heck out of that security system," Artie instructs.

Puck carefully places his palm over the red laser dot and applies pressure. The concentrated electricity shoots through his palm into the reinforced concrete-and-steel wall, burning a tiny hole straight into the electronic system. It dies a short, painless death.

The door clicks, then swings open.

The three children slip inside and begin the real work.

* * *

><p><strong>Sam Evans<strong>

* * *

><p>When Sunshine gets back later that day after Hatch's Very Important Mission, she looks even sadder and sleepier than usual.<p>

Sunshine was the one to comfort him months ago when he found out his parents had died, and even though Sam sometimes wants to bury himself in his room and cry his eyes out when Mercedes tells him through body language that she still hates him, or when Puck calls him a girl, or when Finn won't talk to him because he's too busy being angsty… even when his Elgen "family" doesn't show him the love that a family ought to give, Sunshine's always been the one there to make him just a little bit happier. No matter how little she actually helps, the effort counts a lot. And Sam is grateful for that.

Besides, nobody should be sadder than Sunshine. If Sunshine is really sad, then it's like there's no hope for the rest of the world anymore.

So Sam shoves his feelings aside and bounds up next to Sunshine. "Sunshine, I can do the double cross weave pretty good now!" he says as energetically as he can.

Sunshine jumps in surprise. For a moment her eyes clear up just a little—

A hand suddenly rests on her shoulder. Sam's eyes travel slowly up the long arm, finally resting on Mr. Hatch's imposing form. He's slightly intimidated, but then Mr. Hatch says very nicely, "Sam, Sunny's a little tired from her mission. I think it would be best if she slept tonight."

Sunshine stares blankly at Sam. Her eyes look dead and that frightens Sam. He grabs her hand quickly and looks straight at her. "Are you feeling okay, Sunny?"

She doesn't blink, but she doesn't appear to be looking at him either. Her hand is dead in his.

Sam's fake happy energy begins to drain away.

"Come along now, Sunshine," Mr. Hatch says, using his hand to guide Sunshine. "You can play with her tomorrow, Sam."

Sam still holds onto Sunshine's hand somewhat desperately. There have been times when Sunshine has ditched Mercedes and Brittany or even snuck out of lessons to talk to him. If there's one person in the Elgen family that Sam truly loves like a sibling, it's Sunshine.

But this time, she doesn't say anything. She turns with Hatch. Sam suddenly hates Hatch, _hates_ the man who has given him so much but is taking this one girl away from him.

Sam doesn't let go. Just one last ditch effort. "Sunny! Please…"

Sunshine turns her head slowly and nails him with a flat gaze. "Goodnight, Sam," she says dully, yanking her hand out of his.

* * *

><p>Even though Puck was on the same mission, the big boy still shows up when the family gathers later that night for board games. Sam tries to talk to Kurt, the only other person in the family he feels slightly comfortable with, but Kurt's too busy making gooey eyes at Finn. The problem is, Finn's too busy staring guiltily at the ground to notice. Puck and Mercedes are dominating the board together, systematically working to knock Kurt and Sam out of the game. Everybody ignores Brittany, who doesn't know how to play anyways and teleports her piece to the other side of the board if she rolls a five.<p>

Mercedes finally catches up to one of his pieces and knocks him out; a second later, Puck rolls a lucky six and eliminates Sam completely from the board. In triumph, Puck chucks Sam's last piece across the room and roars in victory.

Tears burn in Sam's eyes. Puck and Mercedes have shown that they don't really like him but now they're teaming up to humiliate him. Artie is still in therapy, Finn's out of it, Kurt's trying to get Finn's attention, Brittany is staring at the wall in confusion, and Sunshine… she's gone. She's in bed right now but she's been gone for a while. Even though she's still here, she doesn't seem to notice him anymore.

There's nobody to love him.

Sam feels like his world is collapsing. He tries to hold back his tears because he knows Puck will just call him a sissy and Mercedes will probably make it worse by laughing. And maybe Kurt might try to hold his hand to comfort him, but Sam doesn't _want_ Kurt, he _wants_ Sunshine. He wants the old Sunshine, not the new one who goes on a lot of missions and comes back and walks everywhere like she's sleepwalking and ignores him.

Through the haze of tears, everybody's big bright lights suddenly burst to life. Usually Sam's able to shut his power to see the other Glows off at will, but now he's so sad and angry that he can't control it. He sees the swirls of magnetic electricity rotating around Mercedes. He sees the channels of electricity from Puck's brain, down to his heart and then branching out down his arms to the palms of his hand. He sees the entirety of Finn's body on fire, exploding with little electric bolts; he sees Kurt's big bright light reaching out to him, trying to calm him, but Sam resists and pushes it away because he doesn't _want_ Kurt to hold his hand and pretend to like him and comfort him when the other boy is really thinking about Finn.

"Stop it," he growls at Kurt, who freezes. "Don't touch me."

Brittany's big bright light flares suddenly too as she notices. Her light reaches towards him tentatively, and because Sam doesn't exactly know what hers does, he lets her. But when he feels her trying to shut down something in his brain, all that anger and depression and pain comes flooding back in full force.

"STOP IT." He glares at each of them, and they all stare back at him in varying degrees of shock, resentment, and confusion. "STOP TRYING TO CONTROL ME." He nails a look at Kurt and Brittany. Brittany slumps back against the wall, visibly hurt, but Sam's hurt is bigger than hers and he doesn't care. He looks at Puck and Mercedes next. "Why do you hate me so much?" he says, trying to keep his voice steady but failing on the last word.

Puck looks taken aback; Mercedes looks like she wants to say something, but a glare from Kurt silences her.

Sam glances in the direction of Sunshine's room. He somehow knows where any of the Glows are at any point in time, even in his sleep, and his eyes immediately settle on where her big bright light should be.

Except it's not there. He can feel her body in his mind but he sees no light.

No light.

It's like she's dead.

"WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?" he screams, rounding back on Puck and Mercedes. "ANSWER ME."

Puck and Mercedes look at each other.

Sam can feel Kurt pressing on his mind and whirls on him. "Stop pretending like you care about me!" he yells, yanking his hand back when Kurt physically reaches towards him. "And don't hold my hand," he barks roughly. "My hand is for people who love me." He shrinks into himself, as if trying to hide within his sweater. "Nobody loves me here…"

Puck finally says something. "You're such a girl sometimes, but—"

Something inside Sam snaps. He's suddenly on top of Puck, punching every inch he can, and Puck's screaming and his big bright light is flaring. Sam can _hear_ all of Puck's thoughts—not just a faint glance of feelings like he'd been able to do months ago, but _words_, words like _fuck, stop hitting me, you're such a girl, I hate you, I'm more powerful than you are so why do you get to go on so many missions, fuck you, I hate you, I'm going to kill you—_

Sam rolls off Puck's body just in time. He rolls over towards Mercedes just as huge blasts of concentrated lightning and fire explode out of Puck's palms, scorching the fireproof walls and destroying their board game. Paper money burns to ash. Brittany and Kurt scream. Finn is sudden in front of both, as if his huge body can shield them. Mercedes is screaming too and when Sam looks up into her face, she looks so _scared._

But then her thoughts come flooding into his mind: _What did he do to Puck, why is Sam being so stupid about this, I hate him, I hate him for making Brittany cry, I hate him for hurting other people, I hate him for making me feel like a terrible mean bully, I hate him for having tea with me, I wish I could have tea with Kurt, Sunny is so stupid, I don't know why she likes him, I hate Sam, I hate him, I wish he would die. I HATE Sam so much I wish he would DIE._

Desperate anger and overwhelming sadness rushes through him and her big bright light explodes too.

The entire room implodes. Anything metal is torn from wherever it was secured. Reinforced windows explode as tiny steel wires peel themselves free. The walls buckle and bend. The television and lamps and chairs fly towards Mercedes, and Finn tackles both Brittany and Kurt to the ground as a high-speed microwave whizzes inches above their heads. All the metal equipment whirls around in a massive cyclone around Mercedes, who's looking absolutely terrified and is completely paralyzed. Puck can't seem to control his power and burns the microwave and a chair into pieces as they fly into his two-foot electric flamethrowers.

Brittany just keeps screaming into Finn's shoulder, over and over and over again. Kurt is crying in fright and Sam can feel that emotion pressing on his mind. The only way he can resist it is by feeding on this anger, the fact that nobody loves him and that the only person who might actually care for him, Sunshine, will no longer be there for him anymore. Even Mr. Hatch, the nice man who took him in and gave him so many plane rides and took him on adventures, even the sweater-vested man isn't always there, and tonight he officially took Sunshine away.

Sam closes his eyes, even as Puck and Mercedes' big bright lights flare and burn through his eyelids.

* * *

><p><strong>Mercedes Jones<strong>

* * *

><p>Mercedes is so terrified, she can't speak. She can't move. She can only watch as the room around her tears itself apart and flies straight at her until it stops maybe three feet away and begins to rotate around her. It's almost a solid wall of metal, of computers and cameras and the television, a couple chairs, the Xbox and the Wii and the Playstation 3, might be Artie's spare wheelchair, a million spoons and forks and knives, cell phones and the guitar strings and the electric piano, CDs and pens and clothes hangers, all of it being torn apart and fused back together with other metal things as they pass through Puck's flamethrowers.<p>

Mercedes sinks to her knees and the whirlwind of metal follows her down, clunking along the floor but still maintaining a tight wall of metal around her. She doesn't know why this is happening to her—she just locked eyes with Sam and suddenly her power flared to life and now she can't control it and she's so, so, so scared. She might have hated Sam before but now all she can think of is of that time in the mall, four years ago, when her mother had held her tight and close and hadn't let her go until the jewelry and bobby pins and cell phones had stopped clattering towards her.

She wants her mom. She wants somebody to hold her and tell her she'll be safe. She keeps Brittany safe; why won't anybody hold her now?

Puck's flamethrowers have been growing larger, she finally notices. She backs away in fright when she feels the heat but stops when Brittany and Kurt scream. She can't see anything behind the hurricane of metal around her but Mercedes is suddenly terrified of what would happen if this solid wall of partially melted and molten metal were to come in contact with her friends' bodies.

Mercedes finally bursts into tears. She doesn't know what to do. Where's Hatch? Where's Mommy? Please, somebody—

Puck's flamethrowers suddenly intensify, blasting Mercedes with heat. She doesn't dare move in fear of running over her friends, but the heat is unbearable. …But the power is also pushing metal aside, opening up a small hole and allowing Mercedes to see the outside world.

The first thing she spots is Puck's face. And she realizes that after all this time, she has no reason to hate him. She doesn't even particularly remember why she hated him in the first place. Or Sam or Finn, for that matter. Sure, they kidnapped Brittany, but Brittany has been okay with Sam and Finn for so many years now. Somehow Mercedes just kept hating them for no reason.

"Puck!" she cries, bursting into tears. No reason to hate the boys anymore, not when Finn already hates himself so much and when Puck has just saved her and when Sam…

…she's not so sure about Sam, but all she wants to do is get out of this molten metal prison. Seriously, it is getting hot in here.

Puck's shouting something. Instinctively, Mercedes tries to get closer to hear, but surprised shouts make her realize that she might run somebody over. She sits again and strains to hear.

Hatch's face finally appears next to Puck's. Hatch speaks into a little device, and his voice echoes throughout the loudspeakers. "Mercedes," his voice booms. "You are going to be alright. Just sit still and close your eyes."

Mercedes nods. Right before she closes her eyes, Hatch leaves and Sunshine's blank face takes his spot. Her dead eyes stare right into Mercedes and that's the last thing Mercedes sees before she can't feel anything, can't see anything, can't smell burning metal and can't feel the burning heat. A couple seconds later and she's unconscious.

* * *

><p>Mercedes awakens not in her bed, but in Nurse Beiste's office.<p>

The moment she shoots straight up, a gentle hand grasps her arm. She shrieks—and then sees Hatch.

"You're okay, Mercedes," Hatch says gently, pushing her back down. "You need to stay in bed, though. Your power reacted to something and we need to make sure you're safe, okay?" She relents reluctantly.

"What happened?" she says in a daze. The last thing she remembers is Puck and Sunshine's faces: Puck's uncharacteristically worried expression, and Sunshine's complete lack of emotion. It's like Sunshine and Puck switched bodies or something.

"Your power reacted with Sam's," Hatch explains. "We're not sure how, but we're keeping him isolated for the time being. We're not sure it's safe for him to be around you guys anymore."

Mercedes nods vigorously. All her old resentment comes rushing back, and she diverts her dislike for Finn and Puck and focuses it all on Sam. It's all his fault. He caused that uncontrollable metal tornado around her and almost caused her to hurt Brittany and Kurt. It's Sam's fault that Puck lost control of his fiery palms. It's all Sam's fault for tearing up the common room and leaving them all hurt. Sam's nothing but a big bully who only wants to hurt people. "How are Brittany and Kurt?" she asks suddenly. "They weren't hurt by me, were they?"

Hatch shakes his head. "Finn might have cracked one of Brittany's ribs when he tackled her, but other than that…" Hatch notices Mercedes' furious expression and sternly adds, "Finn tackled Brittany and Kurt to prevent them from getting hit by flying metal."

Mercedes instantly drops her expression in shame. There it is again: she's the one hurting other people. She's the one who's the big mean bully, not Sam. "I need to apologize to Finn," she blurts hurriedly. "I need to tell him that I've been stupid and mean. I'm sorry, Will."

"My name is Hatch."

Mercedes covers her mouth in more shame. She just keeps on messing up today—but she said that because she remembers Will as the nice man who spent a lot of time with her when she was five-years old, and not this strict teacher who sometimes takes them on field trips but spends most of his time in the observation booth while they're training in lab and rewarding them with an ice cream once in a while. "I'm sorry, Hatch."

Hatch pats her on the head, then looks at her even more seriously. "Mercedes, I have something very important to tell you. Are you ready?"

Mercedes hesitates, then nods.

Hatch looks at her appraisingly, then continues. "Sam's power was the ability to see other Glows. He described them as _big bright lights_."

Mercedes nods. She's heard Sam describe them like that sometimes. She always thought it had been a stupid name.

"We also knew that he could find you guys, no matter where you were. He could also tell what you were feeling. It's almost like he could read your mind."

Mercedes shudders.

Hatch suddenly seems to switch to a completely different topic. "Have you ever noticed that your power gets stronger when you feel strong emotions? Like when you're angry or very hungry? Or if you want something really, really bad, like ice cream. Or if you hate something but you still have to be in contact with it." Hatch's eyes flash. "Like spinach. Or Finn. Or Sam."

Mercedes stares down at her blanket, her face burning up.

"Strong emotions make your power so much more powerful—but it also makes it very hard to control. And that's what happened with Sam. You made him so mad that his power flared. And that's when we found out that his power extended to activating yours."

Mercedes looks up at Hatch. "So what I did in the common room… that wasn't me? That was Sam?"

Hatch's face hardens and Mercedes immediately wants to cry. She wants to blame Sam so badly, to think it wasn't her fault that she put Kurt and Brittany and even Finn in danger, but Hatch caught her and it makes her feel even more guilty.

"It was still your fault for making Sam so angry. I've been watching you, Mercedes. You haven't been nice to Finn or Sam. Frankly, you have been more of a bully to either of them than Puck has been to Sam. You two together made Sam so mad that his power activated. And his power activated yours, and your powers became even more powerful than you can imagine." Hatch reaches into his pocket and pulls out a paperclip and holds it between his fingers. "You can't blame Sam," Hatch says firmly.

Mercedes nods, sniffling and wiping leaky tears from her eyes.

"It's not Sam's fault," Hatch continues. "It's your fault for driving Sam insane. It's your fault that he has to be locked up alone, away from everybody else. He lost his biological family and now, because of you and Puck, he's lost his Elgen family too."

Mercedes feels like the worst person in the world.

And then Hatch lets go of the paperclip and Mercedes feels even worse.

Because the paperclip doesn't drop to the floor; it zooms right at her and sticks to her skin. When she tries to take it off, the paperclip sticks to her fingers. It won't come off no matter what she does. Because of S—no, because of her own stupid bullying and her stupid hate-for-nothing, Mercedes is permanently magnetic.

* * *

><p><strong>Kurt Corcoran<strong>

* * *

><p>Mercedes is suddenly a lot nicer to everybody. To Puck and to Finn. This makes Kurt especially happy, since now he can play with both Finn and Mercedes. Mercedes does her best to never look angry at Finn, and it seems as if Finn smiles a bit more now.<p>

Kurt hadn't seen a lot of what had happened in the common room. He just remembers Finn tackling him hard. It had hurt a lot and Kurt couldn't stop crying for a long time, especially when Hatch didn't show up until Puck started trying to burn his way through the chaos and set a lot of things on fire. It had been so hot in that room and Kurt just wanted to get out from under Finn and run away—but then a couple knives had clattered next to them and Finn had cried out in pain and blood started dripping down onto Kurt and he couldn't stop crying for a long time after that, curled up underneath Finn's huge body and a bit of wooden bookshelf that wasn't burning as a storm of fiery metal raged right next to them.

Kurt feels even more for Finn after that. He would say it was love… but Kurt just really, really likes Finn. It's like Finn is his savior, just like Puck is Mercedes' savior. Sure, Puck had burned up half the room trying to get to her and make sure she was okay, but Mercedes views this pretty positively.

Puck shrugs off this sudden girl attention like it's the cooties, but he doesn't make fun of Finn when Brittany falls asleep against his shoulder and he doesn't move until Mercedes finally leads Brittany away. It seems like Hatch talked to both Puck and Mercedes; they a lot less mean now.

Kurt finally feels like they're all a family. Hatch had told them at the beginning of the year that they should all be a family. That, because Sam and Sunshine had both lost their full families, all of the people at Elgen should treat them especially nicely.

Finally, their Elgen family is complete.

The only person who is missing from the family is Sam. He disappeared after the destruction of the common room, and now he's being kept alone downstairs in the lab. Hatch says it isn't safe that he be around everybody else, since his power might react with other members of their family.

Still, the fact that Sam is alone bugs Kurt. He tries to include Sunshine since her family was deported to the Philippines and she has nobody to return to. Sometimes she's the bright and happy girl she used to be; sometimes she looks around and sighs, wishing that Sam was here, and Mercedes tries not to say something mean; most of the time, Sunshine's out on missions and comes back completely drugged up and robot-like and goes straight to bed.

Kurt guesses that Hatch must need her a lot, but he still tries to draw her into the family.

Together, their family helps Artie walk. They celebrate when he moves into their dorms, and Puck shows more of his nice side by giving Artie piggy-back rides when Artie's too tired. They cheer whenever he walks from his bedroom into the common room where they're all playing board games or Mario Kart or Halo, even if his knees are shaking and he has to sit down for another hour. Brittany spends a lot of time with him and he spends a _lot_ of time looking at her, and Kurt smiles secretly because he sense something might be going on between the two of them.

Hatch takes them on field trips more often as Puck and Mercedes and Artie join the family more. They go to the fair together and ride the ferris wheel and the Zipper and all the rides Artie never got to go on when he was disabled. They go to concerts together; they go shopping together and Hatch gives them credit cards and lets them buy anything they want. Hatch takes them on training practices in larger groups too, making them work together to do simple things in real life.

All in all, they're a big happy family.

The only thing that Kurt misses is Sam's hand. What Sam had said during the fiery metal fiasco had hurt him—it's not like Kurt doesn't care about Sam! He really does! But Sam must miss his biological family a lot… even though Elgen is now his real family.

They return from a trip on a day where Sunshine is awake and happy—and when Sunshine is happy, everybody else is a little happier too. Even Puck and Finn, who are usually stony and angsty respectively. At the end of the day, when the servants are unloading their bags full of clothes and video games and huge trampoline and they're all excited and wanting to bounce on it all at the same time and Kurt wants to dress Finn up in the new wardrobe he bought especially for him—Sunshine's expression falls briefly.

"I wish Sam was here with us," she mumbles forlornly as they sit on the roof/recreation center of Elgen Academy and stare out over the city beneath them.

Mercedes looks up from where she's trying to wipe bobby pins off her magnetic skin, bites her lip, and says hesitantly, "Hatch said… Hatch said that he might be dangerous. That he might… uh, _accidentally _hurt one of us. He's not in control of his power."

"I don't care about his power," Sunshine snaps back. She's still aware that Mercedes hadn't been nice to Sam at all, and though Kurt knows that Mercedes is trying, Sunshine seems to have a shorter fuse despite her constant happiness. Sunshine immediately draw back to that state, apologizing softly, "I'm sorry, Mercedes. I didn't mean to—"

"It's okay, Sunshine," Mercedes says just as quickly.

"It's just that…" Sunshine sighs, looking up at the glowing orange sunset. "I wish… I wish Sam could see this. There aren't any windows in the lab. There's nobody down there but Nurse Beiste and the servants. He's… he's all alone down there."

Artie nods from where he's sitting on a bean bag. "I can see him," Artie says.

"How?" Sunshine asks, cocking her head to the side in confusion.

"My power," Artie says simply.

Mercedes warns, "We're not supposed to talk about our powers."

"It doesn't matter, mine's not anything special," Artie shrugs. "I see through stuff. That's all. And right now, Sam's lying on his bed. That's all he's been doing for the past week—lying in bed and doing nothing."

Mercedes looks at Sunshine. When she notices the Asian's crestfallen expression, she says quickly, "Maybe Hatch drugged him up so he couldn't accidentally hurt somebody. We know that Sam didn't mean to that night, you know."

"When he's sleeping," Artie quickly adds, "He can't be bored! He's probably having good dreams."

"Hatch will find a way to make sure his power doesn't react with ours," Kurt finishes, patting Sunshine on the back. "And then he'll wake Sam up and he'll be back with our family!"

Sunshine looks at all of them gratefully. "Thanks, guys. I just… I really miss him."

"I do too," Kurt says softly.

Mercedes and Artie look at each other and Kurt can feel their emotion, sort of a "_Should we say that we miss him too?"_ Even though Mercedes obviously doesn't feel that at all, and Artie never really knew him.

Sunshine slumps into his hand, then straightens. "I think I'm going to go to bed," she says, leaving sadly. Mercedes, Kurt, and Artie watch her go.

"Damn," Mercedes finally says. "I didn't even like Sam that much, but my heart's breaking over Sunny…"

Artie nods in agreement. "Word."

* * *

><p>Kurt slides down the hallways like a ninja.<p>

They're supposed to stay on their floor after 10pm. They're supposed to stay in their bedrooms and the bathrooms, or at least the common room. But hey, Puck and Finn snuck into the kitchens on the floor above last year plenty of times, and they never got into trouble until Sam joined and Finn crashed through the ventilation system in Kurt's room.

So maybe it won't hurt to go a couple floors down and check out the labs where Sam is staying.

He'd talked about it with Artie, and Artie had looked through the floors and told Kurt what room number Sam was staying in.

Kurt is currently on Floor D, scanning the room numbers. He's in a part of the labs that he's never, ever been in before, really deep into the building. It's absolutely silent and dark down here, and Kurt partially feels his way through the hallways using his power. According to Sam's description, his power is like little tendrils of light that reach out of his "big bright light" and touch other people's lights, so Kurt feels his way through the halls using his little tendrils.

Most of the people down here aren't very happy. Not at all. Some seem to be in pain. Some are grumbling. There's a lot of hate down here. It makes Kurt very uneasy. This is Elgen. This is his home. His happy family is upstairs. Where is the love and happiness? Even the servants who clean Kurt's room and cook his food and say hi to him in the hallways are happy, good people. Why are there so many angry men down here?

Kurt finally finds the cell number that Artie said that Sam was in.

Cell 25.

He reaches forward mentally, imagining those strands of light reaching forward like warm fingers, seeking out Sam. He'll just inject some happiness into Sam and make sure that he has happy dreams. Kurt won't be able to create those memories; he can only affect emotions, and the mind supplies the happy memories. Kurt can only hope that Sam's happy dreams include Sunshine and Brittany and himself.

Kurt finally connects to Sam's head, and he feels something he's never, ever felt before.

Emptiness.

Barren, dark emptiness. Nothing. Kurt knows the body is there, but the mind has left.

The feeling surges over Kurt before he can push it down. He doesn't want to believe. He can't. Sam… Sam can't be…

"Sam…" Kurt chokes, tears dribbling down his cheeks, and then he throws up.

Sam can't be dead.

* * *

><p>Hatch is angrier than Kurt has ever known. Hatch might appear calm on the outside, but Kurt can feel the emotion, the panic, the nervousness, all barely masked by anger.<p>

"Don't tell this to anybody," Hatch makes him swear. "You will break our happy family if you tell."

Kurt nods silently. His tears feel sticky on his cheeks. His mind is a big hot mess and he doesn't know what to think. Hatch is pretty much his dad. He's given him so much; he's given Kurt all the clothes he's ever wanted, and a big happy family, and he's still looking for Kurt's twin sister—he even has a picture of Kurt's twin when she two years old. But at the same time… why wouldn't Hatch tell them that Sam…

That Sam is…

"There wasn't anything in his head…" Kurt weeps. "His head was empty. He didn't have a light."

Hatch sits down quietly next to Kurt, and this time, he really is calm and comforting. "Kurt," he says, enveloping Kurt's tiny hand in his. "Listen to me. This is very, very important. You must promise to never, ever tell anybody about Sam. I am going to explain why to you, because you are a responsible young man, Kurt."

Hatch looks at him with such confidence that Kurt can't help but feel proud that Hatch would trust him. He nods slowly.

"Tell me," Hatch commands.

"I promise I will never tell anybody. Not even Mercedes."

Hatch nods. "Because if you do, they will panic. They will become scared or angry. And the scientists have seen that when those powerful emotions get out of control, your powers get out of control. Mercedes couldn't control her magnetism, remember? And now she can't ever get rid of it. It's because she lost control."

Kurt nods, shocked.

"Sam lost control too—except it had been building for almost a year, remember? Mercedes and Puck were really mean to him all year, and it finally exploded last week."

Kurt chokes on a sob. "He… he died because he was… so sad?"

"He died because he was _mad_," Hatch corrects. "And that's why I need you now, more than ever, Kurt. Remember when I told you not to use your powers on Mercedes?"

Kurt sniffles, nodding.

"That was when I was afraid that she would become dependent on you. But now we have something even more serious. If tempers get out of control, somebody might actually _die_. Just like Sam, Kurt. Their powers might actually fry their brains like it did with Sam."

Kurt can't stop the tears from spilling down his cheeks now. He hadn't wanted to believe it, but now that Hatch says it… it must be true. Sam is dead.

Sam is really dead.

Sam is dead because he didn't feel like anybody in the family loved him.

Hatch gives him a handkerchief and waits until he's quieted. "Kurt, I need you to keep emotions in check," Hatch says finally. "I don't want you to manipulate emotions all the time, but at least make sure that if a fight's coming up, you tone down emotions until we get there."

Kurt nods. "We're family," he says softly.

"What?"

Kurt looks at Hatch. "We have to make sure that nobody feels excluded," he announces. "We have to make sure that everybody knows they are loved."

Hatch nods approvingly and Kurt feels a stronger sense of duty to Elgen.

He will make sure that everybody feels like they are part of a strong family. That they are loved.

He'll do it in memory of Sam.

For Sam.

* * *

><p><span>Hatch's Observations<span>

**Arthur Abrams**  
>- smart kid. Almost as perceptive as Sunshine. Keep close watch on him.<br>- is suspicious of Sam's disappearance; it's possible his vision may have caught the transferal of Sam's body from Cell 25 to the loading truck.  
>- therapy regiment proceeding along well: he is able to stand already and walk on two legs for around ten minutes, after only 10 months of treatment. The outstanding electrical activity within his body seems to be the only explanation for his miraculous recovery.<br>- vision is not radioactive; he _can_ see through lead. In fact, he can see through _anything_.  
>- has said that his X-ray vision does not work on Brittany. Further research down below.<br>- his power is becoming easier to control. He was able to shrink his X-ray vision down to the size of a penny, meaning he was able to see a person's eye for the first time since his power manifested.  
>- it also seems that his vision allows him to see Sam's <em>big bright lights<em>, though not to the extent that Sam ever could. Sam could tell the difference between normal humans and Glows; Artie can only see Glows. However, Artie's power is a biological process that the researchers can actually study by analyzing his eyeballs.  
>- loves video games. Has definitely struck up a strong relationship with Puck.<p>

**Brittany Pierce**  
>- broke a rib during superpower explosion and was unable to use her numbing power on herself.<br>- concerning Arthur's inability to see through her, she may have the ability to negate powers. She cannot consciously do so, though, no matter how hard we've tried.  
>- after Sam's power explosion, it appears Brittany has the ability to not only block pain receptors in the mind, but also other electrochemical gradient receptors. Research and testing has shown she can block the receptors that reabsorb dopamine, essentially allowing the brain to get high off its own natural chemicals. Basically, Brittany has the powers of meth.<br>- has matured past pulling out her hair when she's nervous. It's actually quite beautiful now, thanks to Mercedes' care.

**Sunshine Corazon**  
>- has to be constantly drugged to 1) become willing to use her power in certain situations and 2) prevent her power from overpowering clients.<br>- she has accidentally killed three clients already. Fortunately, two of them were dead-or-alive cases, but the third case has cost us quite a bit of money.  
>- power has developed to the ability to selectively disable senses; she can blank out certain objects within people's visions. Demonstrated during a bank heist, in which she made herself, Puck, and Artie practically invisible to a teacher and two guards. However, it takes an abnormal amount of concentration that can only be achieved by drugging her.<br>- put on an extreme nutrition diet to make up for the resources she's using up to fuel her power.  
>- the kids have noticed that Sunshine's personality has completely changed. Sam's power explosion may have been partially caused due to this.<p>

**Finn Hudson**  
>- nightmares are coming along nicely. He practically believes that he killed his family. This allows Elgen greater emotional manipulation.<br>- his sanity is being upheld by Kurt, due to their shared synchronization. It helps that Kurt really likes him.  
>- has pulled through a couple times despite Mercedes' grudge in an effort to cheer up Sunshine, though this may also be part of Kurt's doing.<br>- Mercedes has been much more civil towards him lately, which may bring him out of his funk. This is good for family relations, but not for the hold we need over him. Increase the duration of Kurt's night time visits.  
>- electric levels are through the roof. After Sam's power explosion, Finn is practically powering the entire Elgen complex.<br>- just a side note: his skin cannot come in contact with liquid, period. It's become so bad that he is no longer able to bathe and is developing quite a stink.

**Noah Puckerman**  
>- despite his intensive training over the past two years, everything was doubled when Sam turned his amplifying power on him.<br>- Puck is able to produce fountains of flaming electricity out of his hands. If he concentrates it enough, he can make lightsaber-like swords that can (slowly) cut through a foot of solid steel.  
>- has opened up considerably since Sam's death, developing a close relationship with Artie and Brittany especially. Tolerates Mercedes, though he's finding himself with more affection than he's used to.<p>

**Sam Evans**  
>- I miss the boy already. So does Bryan Ryan.<br>- his death is extremely unfortunate; until Arthur's eye vision is further investigated, we have no way of discovering more Glows.  
>- thankfully, his death gave rise to significantly increased power for everybody in the room at the time.<br>- The story is that Sam's cousins have claimed him and that he has moved to New York. Only Kurt knows that his body was shipped to our research lab, though he doesn't know that we are dissecting it and looking for a possible way to duplicate or draw from his power.

**Mercedes Jones**  
>- Sam's power explosion has drastically increased the power of her magnetic field to the point where she is permanently magnetic. It's not uncommon to see her walking around with paperclips, staples, bobby pins, and other small bits of metal on her exposed skin.<br>- Puck pranked with a thumbtack. She sent the thumbtack straight back at him afterwards.  
>- they seem to have a lovehate relationship at this point. Mercedes appreciates that Puck broke through the metal tornado but she isn't afraid to dish attitude back.  
>- Sam's death has affected her attitude towards the boys drastically; she is much more kind to Finn now. Relations within the family are improving.<p>

**Kurt Corcoran**  
>- snuck down onto Floor D and found out something he wasn't supposed to. Significant since he affects the emotions of others around him under extreme stress.<br>- rule that Floor D is off-limits.  
>- has agreed to keep emotional crowd control.<br>- is easily the most powerful Glow here, though he doesn't quite have the aggressive personality that Puck and Mercedes both possess.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Rant<em>

_Seventeen children were made with superpowers… but only thirteen appear in the books. I suppose I should have warned in the beginning that there will be character deaths, but that takes out the shock value._

__Drastic increase in powers finally explained: heightened emotions such as anger, fright, and hatred push the development of powers, but with that comes the risk of death. It's also a positive repeating loop: as powers surge out of control, they knock emotional systems silly, which is why Mercedes has some angry-girl problems and why she is also permanently magnetic. Finn's angst, as well as his electricity generation, is being developed with Kurt's emotional manipulation. Sam's final act was to drastically magnify powers of everybody in the room.__

_…I miss Sam already :(_

_Hatch's observations are my way of explaining plot holes, so read them!_

__It was hard to pick this up again after such a long break, but I enjoyed writing a story with superpowers again. Sorry if there are inconsistencies. ___Next chapter: a girl that many of you have been waiting for!___ Leave a review please?__

**Words: **15,500**  
>Parts:<strong> (3/3)**  
>New Additions: <strong>Artie **  
>Cameos:<br>**~ The song is called "Rabbit Heart (We Raise It Up) by _Florence + the_ _Machine_. It's the song I was listening to on repeat while writing!  
>~ Hannah McIalwain as Elgen's history teacher. In this story, she's a prisoner who got out of time on Floor D by teaching the children. In real life, Hannah was a contender of first season of The Glee Project. She was eliminated from the competition in the eighth episode.<strong><br>Total POVs: **Artie, Brittany, Sunshine, Finn, Puck, Sam, Mercedes, Kurt, Hatch


	7. Ten Years Old

**Lucy Fabray**

* * *

><p>Lucy is going blonde.<p>

She's excited. Today is the day. Today is the day that she will rise from the depths of her ugliness and become popular. All she has to do is get rid of her stupid frizzy brunette hair and dye it a brilliant blond and BAM! She's going to be pretty.

This is it. This is the day where her misery ends.

The process takes a lot longer than she expected. The woman working on her hair says that it isn't well-taken care of, but Lucy objects to that. She's been stealing her sister's shampoo instead of using the cheap Costco shampoo that her mother bought, so that should make all the difference. After all, Dianna is the most popular girl of her high school and is dating the quarterback, and she's blonde and skinny.

And she never acknowledges Lucy's existence unless it's to yell at her for being a slob.

So Lucy's going to join gymnastics or something, after she gets her hair dyed blond, and that's going to be it. Nick and Jeff and their gang or Kitty and her gaggle of girls will be begging to be her friends when they see how pretty and blonde and skinny she is.

After an eternity of tugging at her frizzy coppery hair, the woman allows Lucy to get up and look at her new hair in a mirror.

Lucy's grin widens. Her hair is straight and beautiful. The first half of her beautification process is complete. When she shows up at school, maybe half the students will stop bullying or making fun of her.

It doesn't matter that they all go to a rich kids' private school and are forced to wear uniforms; everybody makes fun of Lucy just because she's a little too short and a little too chubby, and she has terrible red acne and wears square glasses with thick lenses that makes her eyes look like they're peering out from a long glass tunnel, and her face, in the words of Kitty, is "butt-fugly."

Lucy feels a tear pooling at the edge of her eye and hurriedly wipes it away as she paid the counter lady with cash that she stole from her mother's desk. Now that she has pretty blonde hair, Lucy can take what the stupid blonde Kitty and her cheerleading bitches have to say. She can deal with Jeff, the blonde pretty boy, and all the mean things he does to her every day, like trip her or throw broccoli at her or put thumbtacks on her chair or cut her in the lunch line.

She walks out of the hairdresser's store and into the sunlight of the open-air mall. The breeze plays through her wet hair and Lucy feels beautiful.

"Yo Juicy Lucy!"

Lucy's world comes crashing down briefly—how did Jeff recognize her? Her hair just went through an entire color change! Was the change not enough to make her less ugly?

Lucy turns and faces the crowd of boys, including Jeff and Nick and—her heart does a little flutter even as her brain tells her to can it when she spots Thad, the proper, polite boy with great grades and charm, standing in front of her. She sort of loses her rational thought, even though her mind screams at her, telling her that the fact that Nick and Jeff are standing directly behind Thad means that this is Not Good At All.

"What are you doing here?" she says dumbly.

"What are _you_ doing?" Thad asks right back, somewhat nervously. He's wearing brand name clothes and looks popular and Lucy wishes her mother would buy her nice clothes instead of Dianna's hand-me downs and cheap stuff from Goodwill, like the animal-print sweater she wore today because she thought she wouldn't see anybody from school on a Saturday.

Lucy looks down at the floor. "I, uh… I dyed my hair," she stutters. "Do… d-do you like it?"

"It's…" He's suddenly standing much closer to her—not right next to her, but enough that she can _smell_ him. He smells like cologne, and even though he's at least three years older than she is and there is NO way that he'd ever been seen with her during school, Lucy can't help but swoon giddily at his scent. "It's, uh…" mutters Thad.

Nick cuts in before Thad can finish whatever nice compliment he was going to say. "Hey, Juicy Lucy's head isn't on fire anymore," he snorts.

Jeff sniggers. "Now it matches the color of her chubby little legs."

Lucy looks down, trying to hold back the tears threatening to well up. They _want_ to see her cry; they want to see her be weak. They'll just laugh if she cries and it'll make her cry harder and then they'll tell everybody in school that Lucy's so juicy that water comes out her eyes whenever you poke her.

This shouldn't be happening. They were supposed to like her and her new blonde hair. Instead, they're acting like nothing has changed. Like she's still the same ugly, worthless girl that nobody wants to talk to or even be near.

"Do it, Thad," calls one of the boys in the crowd.

Another boy adds, "Just do it, you wimp."

Lucy glances up at Thad, just for an instant. The boy looks hesitant and unsure. Even though he's popular amongst the girls and the teachers in their little private school, the boys apparently don't accept him. Or they won't, not until he shows them that he has guts.

Lucy's heart sinks.

She still isn't ready for it when Thad whips a water balloon from behind his back and throws it right into Lucy's chest. She gasps in shock as warm water trickles down her shirt. The boys laugh and jeer and run out of the store; Jeff calls, "An organic present straight from the man himself!"

It's not water. Her tan sweater is stained yellow.

Lucy bursts into tears as she stumbles away from the jeering crowd of boys, trying to tug off her pee-soaked sweater and not trip at the same time.

She doesn't succeed. She topples to the sunlit-soaked pavement and skins her knees against the hot stone as she pulls her wet sweater over her head. And then the waterworks really begin.

She hates her life. She hates who she is, her big glasses and buck teeth and huge fat legs. She hates that, even though her dad's so rich, he gives blonde Dianna so much and doesn't give anything to Lucy. She hates that her mom is so lightheaded and prefers to drink alcohol than confront their family problems. She hates blonde Jeff and his gang for being so _mean_ and she hates the blonde Kitty and her stupid squad of pinheaded cheerleaders for calling her stupid names like "Juicy Lucy" or "Luce the Moose" or "Floozie Loozy" or "Lucy Doozy" or—

"Hey Lucy Caboosey!"

That.

Her day can't get any worse than this. _Please God_, she begs. _Please don't let Kitty be here_.

Lucy goes to church with the rest of her family, but they're not really Christian. They dress up nice and sit quietly in church on Sundays, but the Friday night before, her mom's drunk and either crazy or unconscious and her dad's out "doing business" and Dianna's probably out "doing business" too with her boyfriend. And Lucy? Well, reading fanfiction or doing something secretive that she doesn't want to tell anybody else about.

"Floozy Lucy," smirks Kitty from behind her. "I like your hair!"

Lucy doesn't respond. It's a fake compliment. The moment Lucy reacts happily, Kitty will just crush it mercilessly. She just stares at the floor.

"Now you're so pale, you can use camouflage to hide by just standing next to a white wall," Kitty laughs, and her skinny, popular, pretty friends chitter around her. They're all wearing popular brand name clothing in bright neon colors. They've all got makeup and look like they're in middle school even though they're all in fifth grade like her.

They're all so pretty. Lucy hates them all, but at the same time, she wants to be one of them. Pretty. Accepted. Loved.

"Nobody would notice if she disappeared," giggles one of the girls.

"Good riddance," another girl sighs. "Nobody likes her anyways."

They're all talking like she's not there. Lucy feels even smaller than she ever was before. The blonde hair didn't make her pretty or popular, like it does with Jeff and Kitty and Dianna.

"What happened to your pretty sweater?" jeers Kitty, drawing attention back to Lucy. "You're not going to blend in with the wall very well. It's too yellow."

"It's not my sweater," Lucy lies.

"Sure it isn't," Kitty laughs. "I mean, it's got ugly animals dancing all around it. Only a retarded idiot would wear that, right?"

But with Kitty, you can't fight fire with fire; you just end up with a bigger fire that way and Lucy ends up burned. So she keeps her head down and nods. "I know. Stupid."

"You know you're stupid?" Kitty gasps. "Lucy Caboosey sees the light! We need to throw a party or something! A party for _losers_, of course. You're the only one invited. Don't you feel special, Juicy Lucy?"

Lucy tries to hold back her tears. If Kitty sees them, then that will just egg her on.

Kitty wrinkles her nose. "Ugh, this sweater stinks. Did somebody piss on it or something? It _needs_ to go in the trash."

Lucy springs to her feet. "No, don't!" As much as she hates the sweater and its ugliness, her mom will get angry if she shows up with less clothes. Her drunk mom would say, _If you can't keep your old clothes on your body and looking clean, why should we get you new clothes? You'd just lose them! Until you can prove that you can keep your old clothes, then we're not getting you any new ones, okay?_

Kitty stops, her thumb and forefinger daintily suspending the sweater above the trash can. "Oh? This is yours?"

"No, it's my mom's," mumbles Lucy.

Kitty nods wisely, as if this is some big inside joke and they just hit the punch line. "Here you go then, Toothy Lucy," she cackles, throwing the wet sweater in Lucy's face. The girls around her shriek in laughter and run down the mall, laughing and obviously pointing at her.

Lucy hates them. She wishes they would go away. She wishes she could _hurt _them and make them leave her alone. If they were gone, then she could be happy.

Happy and blonde and beautiful.

She stumbles down the mall towards the exit, leaving the sweater behind. At this point, that ratty old sweater is more trouble than it's worth.

She stomps around, hot tears stinging her eyes, but Lucy doesn't want to wipe them away in case some of Thad's pee is still on her fingers.

"Hello? Uh, I think you left your sweater behind."

Lucy whirls around. The prettiest girl Lucy's seen today is standing next to the pee-soaked sweater. She's really tall, with long legs and smooth thighs and straight blond hair that seems to float behind her when she moves. She looks at Lucy and smiles happily at her, and Lucy realizes that the girl must be only her age—but she looks like she could be sixteen. She just moves with a certain grace, walking like she's gliding over water. She looks like Dianna getting ready to leave for a date night.

She looks perfect.

And so Lucy automatically hates her. She hates that stupid blonde girl for being so damn pretty and probably having all the cruel qualities of her drunk mother, of Dianna, or Kitty and Jeff, all combined in one big ball of ugly and mean.

Lucy hates the girl so much, she wishes the girl would—

The girl's eyes sudden roll into the back of her head. She collapses, her head hitting the pavement with a sickly thud. And then she starts screaming, rolling around as if she's in terrible, terrible pain.

An African-American girl descends on her—just as wide around the hips as Lucy is, but just as gorgeous as the blond, with ringlets of black hair and full, glossy lips, and Lucy doesn't know what she's thinking but suddenly she hates this black girl too. Lucy hates that, even though the black girl is just as large as she is, the girl somehow manages to look attractive and sexy and why—

The black girl clutches her head and screams. She doesn't collapse uncontrollably like the skinny blond, but she does fall to her knees and scream in a huge voice that draws the attention of _everybody_ within a half-mile radius.

Lucy is so shocked that she mentally releases hold of something she hadn't even known she'd been holding.

A boy with a Mohawk shoves his way through the crowd, dropping by the two girls' sides. He's panicking, pulling the blond up from the ground and cradling her as she whimpers and cries into the boy's shoulder. The black girl leans on him heavily. Huge bodyguards in black suits appear out of nowhere and usher the three kids away.

Lucy takes this as her cue to leave. She's shellshocked, unsure of what just happened. She had _wanted_ to hurt those two strangers simply for being beautiful when she wasn't… and somehow… it had happened. She doesn't know how or why but she needs to get out of here before anybody—

The Mohawked boy turns around right before he disappears around a corner. They lock eyes and Lucy knows that instant that he's onto her.

Lucy Fabray runs.

* * *

><p><strong>Arthur Abrams<strong>

* * *

><p>Chaos ensues when Brittany, Mercedes, and Puck come back from the mall.<p>

People are running around and yelling orders and Artie doesn't have the strength to walk that far, so he pulls his reserve wheelchair out from behind the couch, unfolds it, and wheels himself down the hallway towards the entrance to the Academy.

There are people running around everywhere, but Artie spots the people he's looking for right away. Despite the fact that he can't physically see them due to the tight circle of bodyguards, Artie's X-ray vision picks out three "big bright lights", as Sam had coined them before he'd moved away.

There's Mercedes, with circular magnetic lines running around her body. There's Puck, with the electrical channels from his mind to his hands running strong on adrenaline or something. And then there's Brittany, whose big bright light has one strand wrapped snugly around Mercedes, even while her own body shakes with fear.

Artie can't get down the stairs from his wheelchair, and when he shouts, nobody hears him. Frantically, he pulls himself to his feet and shakily begins to make his way down the stairs, calling Brittany's name the entire time. She usually becomes happier around him and right now she looks so _scared_ and he wants to be there for her.

Even if his legs won't cooperate.

He almost collapses on the fifth stair, but a servant rushing by at that exact moment catches him before he tumbles the rest of the way down the stairs. "Whoa there, buddy," the blond says, a small smile cracking its way across his face. "Can't go around breaking bones when we've just healed your legs, right?"

Artie looks down at where Brittany's, Mercedes', and Puck's lights still shine. "I need to see Brittany."

"Willie's trying to keep everybody away," the blond servant says.

"Who's Willie?"

"Erm, I meant Hatch." The servant offers Artie his hand. "Let's go back to the common room. Hatch will bring Brittany there soon enough."

Artie just stares at the hand. "Who are you?"

The blond raises an eyebrow. "Sam didn't ever tell you? I'm Bryan Ryan."

Artie shrugs and begins to scoot down stairs on his butt; he feels a lot more secure that way. "I need to see Brittany," he repeats firmly. "Now."

Mr. Ryan follows him down the steps slowly. "Now com'on, Arthur," he says sternly. "We have to wait. W… Hatch will bring Brittany and Mercedes and that kid with the Mohawk in a minute."

Artie ignores him, but yelps in surprise when Mr. Ryan scoops him up. "Wait, no!" Artie yells, struggling, but then he realizes Mr. Ryan is going down the stairs. Within a minute, Mr. Ryan has shoved from the crowds of people and dropped Artie off in front of the line of bodyguards.

"What business do you have here?" one of the wide-shouldered bodyguards asks.

"Kid wants to see his friends, Goolsby," barks Mr. Ryan. "Just let him through."

Goolsby looks down on Artie menacingly. Artie just stares back, his desire to be with Brittany overpowering his fear of the scary tall man.

And then the scary tall man steps aside. Artie pushes through and ignores Hatch's surprised glare as he hugs Brittany. It takes a second or two, but Brittany eventually notices Artie and her trembling fades away as she wraps her arms around him as well.

He doesn't notice that Hatch's glare is not at him but at Mr. Bryan Ryan.

* * *

><p>Artie's therapy sessions now consist of half leg strengthening exercises and half eye appointments. It's ironic that he has to wear glasses even though his superpower has to do with electric X-ray vision, and it's even weirder to spend at least an hour every day lying on his back on a cold metal table while scientists in white lab coats give him sticky eye drops that make his eyes numb so he can't feel it when they poke around his eyeballs with metal sticks and detectors.<p>

This eyeball examination has happened every day for almost three months now, and Artie's eyes aren't feeling so good anymore. His normal vision is getting worse and they hurt all the time anyways, though if he closes his eyes, the pain goes away. Besides, even he closes his eyes, he can still see people 's electrical charges through his eyelids.

Every living object has small amounts of electricity in them. Not the stuff that powers light bulbs (though he can see that too), but positively and negatively charged ions that move in and out of neural cells to send information throughout the body. Because Artie finds it hard to read (his eyes hurt too much), he's been listening to podcasts and online lectures about these things, opening his eyes only briefly to look at diagrams and video demonstrations. Anyways, he's learned a lot of information about the bioelectrical activity that goes on in every person, and that's what allows him to see everybody. Not only can he see the electricity running through power cords throughout the walls; he can also see a dim spark in every person's brain as they think of something, as their brain tells their right hand to move to the side or the lungs to keep expanding or the left foot to move forward or the stomach to keep digesting breakfast.

Sam apparently can see the bioelectrical lights of Glows from miles away; Artie can only see them if they're in front of him. But at least, Artie knows _why_ the lights are like that. And knowledge is power, so technically Artie is more powerful than Sam was.

The exams finally stop one day. And the next, a new girl joins them.

And man, is she butt-fugly.

Well, that's the initial impression—short and plump with ratty blonde hair that seems to be turning a coppery dark color in some places and a big nose and really crooked teeth. But then Artie notices other things.

Like, just like Brittany, Artie can't see straight through her.

He's been working on his see-through vision all year, and now he can shrink that seen-through beam down to the size of a pinhead; if he doesn't concentrate on it, he can pretty much ignore it. It still pops into his awareness every once in a while though to remind him that he's still disabled, that his power has come with a cost.

But it's not that way with Brittany, and that's why Artie like to be with her so much—he feels normal when he can stare straight into her face and not see through to the back of her head.

Lucy Fabray is like that. Artie can't see through her either.

The third thing he notices is how Lucy Fabray is skittish around any sort of interaction, how she's scared of talking to even _Brittany_… and Artie feels sorry for her.

Maybe she has some traumatic experience, or maybe she was just that girl that everybody hated and never talked to. Artie can sort of identify; after he'd gotten into his accident, he'd lost a lot of friends, like Bryce and Maxfield. And it wasn't because they were mean, judgmental bullies; it's just that they didn't have common interests anymore. Artie couldn't play soccer with them; Maxfield wasn't good at video games; and Bryce started doing track and field, which made Artie so jealous that he refused to hang out with Bryce. That little period between the loss of his friends and the gaining of new friends, Artie had felt very alone.

Well, Lucy's loneliness is on a completely different level. Based off how wary she is around other people and how she keeps her head down when Puck glares at her, Artie feels like Lucy has been through some really rough times.

So during dinner, Artie chooses to sit next to her. This upsets Brittany briefly, but then she chooses to join them anyways. Lucy stiffens at this.

"Hi, my name is Arthur," Artie introduces. "But you can just call me Artie."

"I'm Brittany, but my cat signs my signature as Sir Brittany of Awesomesauce."

The edges of Lucy's lips quirk upwards a little, but then she slams them back down as if she's afraid somebody will attack her for finding humor in Brittany's sentences. Artie clears this up by saying, "Don't worry about what Britt-Britt says. She doesn't have a brain-mouth filter."

"I'm organic," Brittany says truthfully. "My brain pops out thoughts and they come right out without preservatives and stuff."

Artie nods. "Truth," he declares.

Lucy looks up at him and smiles.

* * *

><p>They're in Lucy's bedroom later, helping her organize stuff. Apparently, Hatch took her on an all-out shopping trip, and she bought plenty of girly stuff that Brittany delights over. Almost <em>everything<em> is a bright neon color, from electric blues to vivid purples to hot pinks and highlighter yellows. Lucy's room explodes with colors that dazzle Artie's eyes so much, he has to close them and rely solely on his electrovision to track Brittany and Lucy's movements around the room.

Brittany's big bright light is currently confined to her head, with only small tendrils weaving around and instilling happy thoughts to the minds she touches. Lucy… doesn't have a big bright light. In fact, it looks more like a black hole in her head, sucking in wisps of Brittany's electricity and not returning them.

Maybe that's why Artie can't see through her. He hasn't seen his own power, but he imagines that his brain shoots out little electrons through his eyes, and they travel along a little flashlight beam until they hit their intended object. But some of the electrons are going a little too fast, so they slip between any available opening until they reach the other side of the target, and then they keep going until they hit something else they can't pass.

But maybe all the electrons that Artie is shooting out of his eyes are being sucked right down that black hole in Lucy's mind, and that's why he can't see the big bright light hiding in the center of the black hole. Lucy has a power, but that power makes it so that he can't use his electrovision to see her.

Artie stores this for later thought. "So how did you get here?" he asks. He hasn't contacted his parents in almost a year—all he knows is that the car accident caused by his mom's second seizure landed him here, luckily. Hatch tells him that his mom is doing great and is living back with his dad, and that both of them want Artie to heal and regain the use of his legs here at Elgen.

Lucy doesn't make eye contact with him; it seems like another habit pounded into her by too much bullying. Artie still thinks she's generally unattractive, but that doesn't mean he can't be her friend. With careful observation, Artie concludes that she must be socially stunted and emotionally broken. At least she's talking now, though she flinches if she thinks Artie or Brittany might be offended. "I wanted to come here," Lucy says quietly.

"Really?" exclaims Artie.

Lucy's head shifts slightly in his direction, even though she doesn't look at him. "Didn't you?"

"Well…" Artie stares up at the ceiling. "Yes. I did. But not at first. Nobody asked my opinion; my parents sort of dumped me here after my car accident."

Lucy gestures at his legs. "Is that why you get so tired usually? Did the accident break them?"

Artie grimaces. "They, uh, were broken before the accident. My mom and I were in another car accident years ago. Both times, my mom was driving and had a seizure. The first time my legs stopped working and Elgen offered to treat me, but my mom said no. The second time, my parents finally said yes, I guess." He stretches a leg satisfactorily. "And that's something I'm grateful for."

Lucy looks at Brittany. "What about you?"

* * *

><p><strong>Brittany Pierce<strong>

* * *

><p>Brittany flinches when Lucy asks her that question. That question brings terrible memories to mind. She doesn't like to remember. She's blocked them out for such a long time that she almost can't remember—Sam and Finn were there, and Heather had a seizure, and then Hatch brought her into the school—<p>

Then she focuses on Sam, his happiness and his energy and holding her hand and hugging Kurt and smiling and knitting scarves with Sunshine. Those memories of the new Sam wash over those terrible memories in the past, and Brittany focuses on those to combat the sadness.

Until a new sadness comes in when she remembers that Sam moved away. And now there's nobody else like that. Well, maybe Sunshine on a good day.

She's pulling on her hair again. It doesn't really calm her down, but old habits die hard.

"Britt-Britt," begins Artie, snapping her out of her mental struggle.

"There y'all are!" Mercedes exclaims from behind them, and Brittany smiles happily upon the sight of her best friend. "I was wondering where you guys went," Mercedes smiles, sitting down next to Brittany. The big black girl sticks her hand out towards Lucy. "Hi, I'm—"

Lucy flinches as Mercedes' hand stretches out towards her, as if she's expecting Mercedes to hit her. Brittany and Mercedes are left feeling a little confused, so Brittany reaches forward and rubs Lucy's back to calm her down. That always works on Brittany when she's stressed and her muscles are all bundled up and tight. "That's Mercedes," Brittany says softly, thought she stops rubbing Lucy's back when it doesn't relax in the slightest.

"Mmm Lum-smm," Lucy mumbles, staring at a soft yellow shirt.

Mercedes tries again, keeping her very soft and gentle. "That's a pretty shirt," she compliments. "That's totally something Sunshine would wear on a good day."

Lucy looks away. "What is Sunshine like on a bad day?"

"She doesn't have bad days," answers Brittany right away. "She has good happy days and sleepy zombie days."

"Puck says that, on the missions he's been with her, Nurse Beiste drugs her up," Mercedes says, tossing out a little piece of gossip.

"Puck told me that Hatch injects him with some drugs on some missions too, but we don't see him getting all zombie mode," argues Artie.

Mercedes looks uneasy; what Artie just said about Hatch, their almost-sorta-dad, probably makes Mercedes feel uncomfortable. "It's Nurse Beiste who does the shots."

"Nurse Beiste does the shots," corrects Artie. "But Hatch orders her to—"

Brittany quickly intervenes by holding the nearest article of clothing against her chest. "How does this look?" she asks, nudging Mercedes.

Something in Lucy's expression twists in an ugly direction, Brittany notices, but then Mercedes giggles, "Britt-Britt, that's a skirt. It goes around your waist."

"Oh." Brittany drapes the red skirt across her legs. "How 'bout now?"

Mercedes says authoritatively, "That skirt's a little too short for you."

Brittany bites her lip. "Okay." She holds it in front of Lucy and notices that the skirt pretty much covers her knees. "But it's too long for you."

Lucy snatches the skirt away. "It's perfect. It… it hides my legs." Her face burns.

Mercedes looks like she wants to comment, but Artie shoots her a glare that shuts her up. "What neighborhood did you grow up in?" he says offhandedly. "Nobody cares here at Elgen, don't worry about it."

Lucy looks unsure, so Mercedes adds, "Girl, if something really does bother you, be sure to go straight to Hatch. He can do almost anything!"

Lucy's gaze turns to Brittany, and this time, instead of anger, a wistful look steals its way across her face.

* * *

><p><strong>Sunshine Corazon<strong>

* * *

><p>Sometimes, Sunshine wakes up in bed and doesn't remember what she's done in the past couple days.<p>

That's pretty scary.

Sometimes, Sunshine wakes up in bed and remembers_ everything_ that she's done in the past couple days.

That's absolutely terrifying.

Political rallies where the big important man suddenly collapses in the middle of his speech and nobody knows why. Football games when the quarterback suddenly faints in the middle of a play. Dark scenes when the security guard can't see the sneaky men rushing past him to do who knows what.

Hatch says they're always important things, and, because Nurse Beiste has injected her with something, she always finds herself agreeing wholeheartedly.

Hatch knows best. Hatch knows what he's doing.

But sometimes Sunshine will wake up in the middle of the night with a rational mind and she _knows_ what she's doing is horrible.

So sometimes when she comes back from missions, she really is drugged up and a lot slower than usual. The Elgen family has learned to leave her alone during those phases. But most of the time, she really isn't that zombie-like. The drug doesn't really last that long, but Sunshine needs time to process and bury all those terrible memories in a deep dark place in her mind where nobody will ever find them. So she pretends like she's still drugged up and everybody leaves her alone.

Even Sam.

Sam has left her alone, permanently. He chose real family over the Elgen family.

He chose real family over her.

In a way, Sunshine is happy for him. He's gone to a place where everybody truly loves him, instead of the sibling fights that occurred all the time whenever Mercedes or Puck was around.

But at the same time, Sam had been the only one who had insisted on remaining next to her, no matter which state she was (pretending to be) in. He had some of his own problems that he felt really bad about, just like she did, but he made it a point to make sure that she didn't wallow around in those problems alone.

And now, here she is, thinking about everything she's done. Alone.

…Just like Finn. And look how much of a terrible mess Finn is.

Sunshine plays with this thought for a while, unsure of what she wants to think of it. Is Finn like that because he doesn't want to show weakness, so he bottles it all up inside? Is he like that because he doesn't have anybody to offer support? Is he so broken because nobody is showing any care towards him?

Just like that new girl, Lucy. Even Sunshine has to admit that she isn't the prettiest girl in the world. At all. Her blonde hair doesn't match her red eyebrows and her nose is really, really big. And, though she uses makeup to hide it, there's a really big red zit right in the center.

Lucy and Finn and she are all in the same place. Maybe not by the same way, but they're in the same situation: collapsing underneath the weight of their burdens because they have nobody to support them.

They're only ten years old. Are they supposed to have these kinds of problems?

* * *

><p>School is different for Sunshine now. Hatch used to have her on training only, but lately it's like he's been trying to inject a bit more levity into her life.<p>

Like this art class.

Sunshine doesn't quite see the point in it. Before Elgen, she was all about academics, and that's why her parents sent her to this private boarding school: so she could get the best education possible. But her education at Elgen didn't use the whiteboards or textbooks; in just the past year, she's spent more time on the research floor knocking human servants unconscious than she has in the classroom.

But now, she, Finn, Lucy, Mercedes, and Puck are all taking an art course.

"This is stupid," grumbles Puck for the hundredth time.

Mercedes groans, "What's the point of this? I don't want to draw a stupid bowl of fruit."

"I'm hungry," Finn mumbles.

Their art instructor walks up to the front of the room. "You know what? I don't care what Hatch says about true art… we're going to go a bit more _modern_." Ms. Marissa picks a banana out of the basket. "So let's say this: you don't have to draw the bowl of fruit as you see it," announces the redhead. "I want you to draw the bowl of fruit as you _perceive_ it."

Everybody gives Ms. Marissa a confused stare.

Everybody except Sunshine. Something deep within her, something she hasn't accessed since she started living at Elgen, kicks in. Classroom full of children. Teacher asks a question. Sunshine's hand shoots up into the air, waving energetically until the teacher calls her name. Smartest girl in her class. Smartest girl in her _school_. Wunderkind. Wonder child.

The words run over the fake zombie barrier she's erected around herself and spill off her tongue. "So you basically want us to draw whatever we want?" she clarifies. "Whatever the bowl of fruit inspires us to draw?"

Ms. Marissa starts peeling her banana as everybody stares at Sunshine in shock, as if it's the first time she's spoken in weeks.

Oh. That's right. She _has _been spending too much time in her zombie state. Sometimes it's easier to deal with the world when there aren't people bugging you constantly.

But hell, is it _lonely_.

"You're right," Ms. Marissa says, talking as if she's not surprised. Which would make sense, since this is her first time meeting all of them. "Look at that bowl of fruit. What do you feel? What does inspire within you? To you, is it just a bowl of fruit? Or is it a meal? Or is it an explosion of flavor in your mouth?"

"How the heck do you draw a taste?" jeers Puck, his attention snapping back to Ms. Marissa.

"I don't know," their redheaded art instructor says, her lips sliding around the banana. She bites into the banana flesh slowly, leaving a bit of red lipstick there. "You tell me."

Puck continues to stare at Ms. Marissa in utter fascination as Mercedes and Finn pick up their paint brushes hesitantly and begin to swipe at the blank sheet of white butcher paper.

Sunshine's gaze returns to her blank sheet, and suddenly, her empty white sheet of paper, once so dreary and plain, explodes into color. For the first time in over two years, she feels _awake_. Sunshine's left feeling dazed as waves of emotion assault her, and before she can even comprehend it, she's struck with a startling realization: her life is just like Ms. Marissa's bowl of fruit.

That bowl of fruit is her life as it is right now. Going out and doing exactly what Hatch says under the influence of Nurse Beiste's drugs. That's what's going on. But her drawing of the fruit bowl—that can be something completely different. It doesn't have to be a bowl of fruit; it can be an act of enjoyment for a certain redheaded woman, it can be a bowl of glittering jewelry for Mercedes, or a lump of multicolored stuff for Finn, or a banana shooting missiles and a couple raspberries exploding with blood and an apple with… boobs?... for Puck. It can even be a deluge of midnight black paint thrown straight from the can onto the white paper for Lucy.

Sunshine's drawing of the bowl of fruit is whatever she wants to perceive it to be. And that is enough. All she has to do is look at it a different way and everything's okay. Her superpower doesn't have to be a horrible misuse that drags her down into darkness and makes her sad all the time; she can just change her perception, view her superpower from a different perspective… and all is fine with the world.

Sunshine dabs her paintbrush in sunshine yellow and begins to draw, a small smile spreading its way across her face.

* * *

><p><strong>Finn Hudson<strong>

* * *

><p>What Sam did the day before he left… it had to have done something with Finn's power.<p>

Because he's suddenly producing a lot more electricity than he can control. There's so much electricity building up within him it _hurts._ There's so much, it's like it's trying to leap out of his body at any chance. Even the smallest contact of water burns his skin when electricity cackles out. Wet Wipes are out of the question now; he doesn't wash himself anymore, period. He has to drink distilled water, water that's been purified of all ions so that it can't carry electricity.

It's a miserable existence, and Finn just waits for those days when he can just discharge it all: during missions.

Finn's almost relieved, because it means he can really let loose with it all at once, instead of having to carefully control his output into Elgen's storage system so he doesn't blow the entire system. The last time he flooded the system, all the lights and appliances went out and everybody gave him crap about it. Even Puck, his buddy, and worst of all, Mercedes. Only Kurt swooped in to save the day, and Finn's still pretty grateful about it.

It's a cloudy day for a mission, which is perfect. Nobody can see their helicopter at this time at night. Finn's up high with Mr. Bryan Ryan, as Sam had called the pilot. No matter what Sam said about the exhilaration of being so high up in the sky, Finn can't find it in himself to enjoy the experience. It might be because he's hanging out the helicopter door, looking down into the emptiness of the night beneath him with the wind whipping his hair, with only a small rope anchoring his harness to the aircraft.

"You ready for this, Finn?" Hatch says from his safely buckled position next to him. "When I say _go_, you let loose with one bolt. Okay?"

Finn gulps. Nods.

"When I say _let it all loose,_ you can pour it all out, okay?"

Finn nods.

"You understand what we're doing here?"

Finn nods again.

"Tell me," barks Hatch. "What are you doing?"

"We're…" Finn swallows. It's so high up here… "We're…"

"It's you," Hatch corrects firmly. "You're doing it. I'm sitting here."

_But you're telling me to do it,_ whines Finn mentally, but he doesn't say it out loud. "I'm trying to hit something."

"You _will_," repeats Hatch. "You _will_ hit the target, Finn."

"I will hit the target," Finn murmurs. "I will."

"If you fail this mission, Finn, there might not be another mission for you to let loose," Hatch warns.

"I _will_ hit the target," repeats Finn. "I will, I will, I—"

"Go!"

Finn shoots one small arc of electricity. Just one. A brilliant white bolt that shears through the air, ionizing the wind around them.

"Go!"

Finn mimics firing a gun, using his middle and pointer finger to shape a gun barrel. He lets off two bullets of electricity in quick succession.

"Go!"

Another bolt, but this time, it's a huge bridge of brilliance that bounds across the night sky, illuminating all the clouds in an ionized purple sheen. It skims off just the top of Finn's almost limitless store of electrical energy stored within, relieving the pressure. Already he's feeling just a bit better.

"Go!"

Another bolt that crackles, spreading like a root with little extensions that crawl along the sky.

"Go!"

This quick succession of lightning bolts is all part of a pretense. Finn's just faking a lightning storm by tossing out a couple electrical arcs before going in for the final showdown…

"Alright Zeus, let it all loose!"

And Finn, with a just little bit of warm happiness rising in his chest, really lets it all loose. He puts his all into both of his hands and unleashes a torrent of electricity out into the night sky. Thick trunks of roaring white intensity, leaping sparks that race ahead, spiderweb crinkles that pave the path, bouncing bolts that fill the spaces in between. Finn pours everything out, literally illuminating the heavens with his power.

In that one moment, that one invincible moment, Finn feels like Zeus: god of the skies, of the lightning bolt, of all the other gods. He feels like the most powerful man in the world.

And then it all drains out of him—all the electricity he'd stored up for weeks, and he's just a normal old Finn again, the smelly one that most everyone ignores. The one who stares into the inky midnight that's illuminated not by the brilliance of his power, but by the burning wreckage of the private jet on a crash course with the lonely oceans below.

"Mission accomplished," Hatch says as Mr. Bryan Ryan veers back towards the coast of California.

* * *

><p>Finn stares at his blank sheet of paper again. Ms. Marissa is standing at the front of the room, this time telling to draw whatever they <em>perceive<em> the watermelons to be.

They're just watermelons, two sitting right next to each other. Is there something else that they're supposed to be?

Finn shifts uncomfortably; his mind is a blank slate and his body is overreacting again. It's only been two weeks since the last mission, but the electricity in his body has already built up to such levels that he feels that constant pressure within him again. He _needs_ to let it all out soon or he's going to explode… but Hatch hasn't contacted him about any missions yet.

His mind snaps back to attention when Ms. Marissa walks past him on her way to inspect Mercedes' drawing. The African-American girl has drawn watermelons surrounded by happy things, like flowers and glittery things and butterflies. In front of Mercedes, one of Puck's watermelons is leaking conspicuously red liquid. A ways to the side, Sunshine has a rainbow spread between her two watermelons, complete with a smiley sun in the background casting everything into brilliant sunshine. Finn's glad for Sunshine's sudden and abrupt return to sunshiny normalcy—she's hardly a zombie anymore. That's got to be good, right?

And Lucy's… well, Lucy hasn't changed in the couple weeks she's been at Elgen, and her paintings are the same as they always are: black, splashed everywhere. She's currently attacking the paper so hard with her brush that she's almost tearing it. Every week is the same: black.

Ms. Marissa never seems to notice Lucy mishandling her art; the redheaded girl seems to be too busy showing off for the security camera close to the teacher's desk. Right now she's crouching over the watermelons, allowing her chest to rest of the large fruits, while complimenting Sunshine on her artistic reinterpretation.

Finn's mind drifts back to Lucy; he can almost understand why she chooses black. Even though Lucy's world seems a bit brighter—she wears her neon clothes and hangs out with Brittany a lot—Finn can tell that underneath, she's a lot like he is. Hurt. Mistrustful. Not willing to open up to people completely.

She's one of the few people Finn can really identify with.

He's just too shy to actually talk to her at all. After art class, they usually just pack up and go their separate ways: Lucy towards Brittany's room, and Finn with Puck to their rooms.

Things go differently today, though.

"Everybody, get down!" bellows a guy's voice. It sounds a little funny, as if he comes from another country. "This is a hold up!"

Two guys come into the room. Finn recognizes one guy as a security technician, one who usually spends time watching the cameras and reporting things to Hatch. The other guy is the one who spoke, the one with a funny accent. All of that is wiped from Finn's thoughts the moment he spots what the two servants are holding.

Water guns.

"Michael? Damian, what are you doing?" Ms. Marissa screeches. "This is a _class—_"

"There are only five minutes left," grins the funny-accent man, Damian.

"Shut it, woman," growls the security guy, Michael, striding up to the front of the room. "You are under arrest for inappropriate conduct within an elementary classroom."

Ms. Marissa blushes as red as her hair. "Why I never—"

Michael shoots her with a stream of water. Puck's mouth hangs open when it hits her straight in her chest. Ms. Marissa squeals and covers her heart, whereupon Damian fires a round of water shots in the general direction of their art instructor.

"DON'T—" shrieks Lucy, but too late. Puck, Mercedes, and Finn are caught in the crossfire; Mercedes and Puck only gasp of surprise, but Finn screams when one squirt of water hits his neck and another hits his bare arm. Electricity arcs through his body and he tumbles to the ground as all his muscles freeze up, hitting his head on the ground hard. Stars—or are they sparks of electricity?—dance across his vision as pain blooms from site of contact, accompanied by a slightly burnt smell.

He can't move. There was enough water in each squirt to have completely immobilized him; jolts of electricity continue to chase each other in circles through his muscles, essentially inducing a small seizure until the water evaporates away.

Somebody's calling his name through the haze of pain. A hand rests on his neck. It takes a moment, but the small bits of electricity still sizzling somewhere in his system disappear… and with it, some of that electricity that's been trying to explode out of his body this entire time. In fact, the longer the hand rests on his bare skin, the more that pent-up electricity drains away. Finn gasps in relief as it just disappears, spiraling down into what seems to be a black hole. And maybe the black hole hurts his brain a little… okay, maybe a lot… but it's nothing compared to the relief of that constant electrical build-up that has finally, _finally _been siphoned away.

Finn opens his eyes.

Lucy hovers above him, her scraggly blonde hair hanging around her large face and huge nose with the red zit right in the middle.

And in that moment, she is his savior and he loves her.

Then Puck shoves her out of the way. The sharp pain he almost hadn't noticed in the back of his mind disappears, but the electrical siphoning disappears too and Finn's back to feeling that pressure—not as strong as it had been, but still present.

"Finn!" barks Puck. "Finn, man, are you okay?"

Finn tries to prop himself up; Puck and Sunshine help. He looks around; Michael and Damian and their water guns are no longer in the room, he's relieved to notice. Ms. Marissa has a hand over her mouth at the front of the room, Mercedes next to her also shocked.

And Lucy, sitting off to the side, looking somewhat excluded.

Finn tries to catch her eye. The girl who's the most like him in Elgen, the girl who helped him. Apart from Kurt, Lucy is now one of his greatest friends, solely because she _helped_ him with his burden of a superpower.

"Freakin' retards, we'll get them," mutters Puck above him. "We'll show them not to mess with us. Freakin' water guns, don't they know anything…"

Lucy won't look at him; she's too busy staring at the ground. So Finn doesn't listen to Puck promising revenge or Sunshine asking him again and again if he's okay or Ms. Marissa finally calling in help. All he says is one word.

"Lucy."

* * *

><p><strong>Noah Puckerman<strong>

* * *

><p>So he can't really help but be mad. Finn's supposed to be his bro. His best friend. The guy who does stuff with him.<p>

But choosing the loser Lucy's company over his? What happened to bros before hos, man?

Puck has to admit that maybe, he hasn't been such an awesome friend in the first place. He didn't even know that so little water would cause so much pain. He knew that Finn didn't ever take baths and couldn't ever go swimming because of his power, but that didn't matter to Puck; he didn't care about Finn's smell and went swimming without Finn anyways. But apparently Lucy had known, because she'd shouted "Don't!" when Damian and Michael had come in with those water guns and made Marissa wet.

Well, looks like this round, hos are above bros.

And that really pisses Puck off.

So all that's really left to do is take his anger out on something. Why not someone? Maybe he'll show those two punks not to mess with them again. It's just like what Hannah, their history teacher, tells them: they're apex predators. Sunshine and Artie. Brittany and Mercedes. Lucy and Finn, Puck and Kurt—they're all apex predators. With their superpowers, they are slightly above the average human and thus should act accordingly. The only reason why they listen to teachers and Elgen officials like Hannah and Marissa and Hatch is because Elgen is helping them to become the best that they can be. And they can't improve if they burn the Academy to the ground, right?

But Damian and Michael aren't Elgen officials.

They're fair game.

* * *

><p>To Puck's surprise, Finn is more than eager to join his master plan of revenge. Within a minute of Puck starting his advertising pitch, Finn is all in and it's like the old times all over again. It brings an almost overpowering sense of satisfaction to Puck when he spots that playful glint of mischief in Finn's eyes. Especially since Finn's spent the past, what, like year or something, being all emotional and crap. Plenty of time for Kurt to swoop in and act like a comforting shoulder, except even that gets old (plus it's a major downer).<p>

They're in the middle of grand traps and "accidental" use of powers when they're rudely interrupted by…

"Finn! Thank goodness, I didn't know where'd you gone!" Kurt bounds into Puck's room. "You weren't in all your usual places."

"Hi," Finn mumbles, drawing a goofy diagram of Floor D's hallways. "Damian. We're going after him, since he's the one who squirted me." He mutters some choice words that he'd picked up from Puck not ten minutes ago.

Kurt looks absolutely shocked. "Finn! Bad language!"

Finn glances up then, that goofy half-grin on his mouth. "Whoops, sorry," he says, not at all apologetically. He looks down at his diagram. "Hey Kurt, you're down on Floor D a lot, aren't you?"

"We're not supposed to talk about that," hisses Kurt.

Finn looks up, a shy grin on his face. "But it's me, Kurt. You can talk to me, can't you?"

_You manipulative bastard,_ Puck realizes. A small amount of resentment still bubbles in his mind, though, and he shoves his way between Finn and Kurt. "We don't need to know about Floor D," he grunts. "The techies are on Floor C. That's where Damian is probably going to be. Or that Michael guy."

Finn looks from Kurt to him, his mouth twisting from a flirty pout to frown of confusion.

(Finn might not even know he's _flirting_ with a _boy_, even if it is just to manipulate him… but Puck's mom's stage name is Holly Holliday, dammit, and no one's going to say Puck doesn't know _how_ his mom gets her money.)

"Are you sure they aren't on Floor D?" Finn asks. "That's where—"

"—the workers are," Kurt finishes, trying to draw Finn's attention back to him. "Just the normal human records. Hatch calls them guinea pigs. They're the bottom of the hierarchy."

"Hi…archy?"

Stupid Kurt and his stupid big words. "Whatever," Puck snorts. "What I was _trying_ to say before Kurt bucked his way into _our_ conversation is that Damian and Michael work here as techies, so they're a bit higher up in the building. Floor C instead of Floor D."

Kurt's eyes widen. "Damian and Michael? Why do you—" he stops suddenly. "No! Hatch says you can't!"

"The assholes knew about Finn," Puck growls, savoring the look of shock on Kurt's face at the bad word. "Everybody knows about Finn! He pretty much provides the electricity for the entire building! But the idiots still decided to come in anyways so they take a peek at Marissa's boobs."

Oh yeah. It's not like he didn't miss Marissa asking them to paint a pair of watermelons. Seriously, their art teacher doesn't have _any_ of the subtlety that his mom had.

And in the strangest moment, Puck actually _misses_ his mom.

She was never around, of course, and Puck shoves that emotion to the furthest corner of his mind. She was always too busy with a day job as a substitute teacher and a night job where she forbade Puck and Esther to come out of their second floor bedrooms _no matter what_. She never brought _them_ back before midnight, so Esther was usually asleep by then… but Puck would come back from the neighborhood at two in the morning and, in climbing the tree to his room window, would see the tiniest flickers of movement, hear the smallest throaty moans, smell the sweat leaking through the floorboards. It was just another part of his life.

His old life, before Hatch found him.

And Puck swears, he swears to any stupid gods out there, that he doesn't miss any part of his old life. Not his mom or Holly Holliday at work or the neighborhood kids who betrayed him when Zizes freakin' _sat_ on him.

Puck shakes his head in time to catch the tail end of what Finn's saying. "Puck's going to help me because he's my best friend, and if you aren't, then you can just… leave."

Nah. Puck doesn't miss his old life at all. Elgen is ten times better than his old neighborhood, even if he isn't not the boss of the neighborhood kids. Nope, here in Elgen, he's an apex predator, a guy with superpowers. He's a completely different species than the rest of the humans. Different from Esther and Holly Holliday. Different than Damian and Michael.

Damian and Michael _attacked_ Finn. It's only right that they attack back.

He has the _right_ to look down at them humans.

* * *

><p><strong>Mercedes Jones<strong>

* * *

><p>Hatch leans towards her. "And… you can't turn it off?"<p>

"No," Mercedes wails, holding up a handful of paperclips and hairpins for Hatch to see. "Everything's sticky!" She isn't actually holding them; it's more like the little metal bits are magnetically dangling off her fingers. Thankfully, it only seems to work with her hands. Mercedes shudders to think what it'd be like to have paperclips clinging to her magnetic face. If Puck snuck a thumbtack onto her seat again, would it be permanently stuck in her butt?

The thought makes her want to cry, but she holds back. She can smash cars, right? Puck's not going to make her cry just because of an imaginary thumbtack. And if the thumbtack ever becomes a reality, she'll just smash his metal TV. She's tougher than Puck is!

Hatch sits back on his tiny chair. Mercedes still really likes that Hatch treats her and Kurt like adults. He always makes sure that he's sitting when he does these official little meetings, instead of towering above them like any other scary adult (like Nurse Beiste. Nurse Beiste is big and really scary, and she always gives shots that make Puck super angry or Sunshine super zombie.)

It reminds her of Will, the nice man who gave her nice and pretty things when she first came here. Not Hatch, the teacher and principal and authoritative guy who seems to spend more time in his office or the observation booth than having fun with them.

Hatch looks thoughtful for a moment. "You know, Mercedes… this—"

Anything helpful or encouraging that he was going to say is cut off when Kurt explodes into Hatch's office, a jabbering mess of frantic words and wild hand gestures. "Hatch! PuckisgoingtoattackDamianand Michaelandhe'sreallyangryhemightjustburnt hemtodeathandItriedtostophim buthedidn'tlistenandhe'stryingtodragFinnintothisand they'reallgoingtobeinreallybigtro ubleifwedon'tstopthem!"

Hatch closes the distance between Kurt and himself in two large strides and immediately kneels on one knee, putting himself level with Kurt's eyes. "Kurt, slow down," he says, hands resting lightly and calmingly on Kurt's small shoulders. "What's going on?"

Kurt takes a deep breath and is about to launch into another volley of words when Hatch stands up suddenly. "Kurt, why don't you sit down," he suggests, gesturing to the seat next to Mercedes. "It would help me understand you better."

Kurt nods, looking at Mercedes. She pouts at him while hiding her hands behind her back. She hasn't told anyone yet, even though Kurt is her best friend. She wanted to fix this as soon as possible with as little embarrassment as possible, so she went to Hatch first.

Kurt looks confused by her frustration but seats himself next to her anyways, all bouncy nerves. Still, he impatiently waits until Hatch is seated on the other side of a desk stacked with papers before blurting, "Puck's trying to drag Finn into killing two technicians from Floor C because they squirted water on Finn during art class! And I know that you've already punished them, right? So there's no reason to have Puck punish them already, especially since Puck and Finn doesn't exactly know control very well and he might get Finn to _kill_ them!"

Kurt pauses, waiting for Hatch to exclaim in shock or something. Mercedes is certainly surprised. She knew that Finn had been hurt a couple days ago by the water, but enough to want to pay them back?

She mentally shakes her head. Boys.

"Hatch?" says Kurt carefully. "What if Finn accidentally kills Damian?"

The Irish boy? But Mercedes likes him! His accent is pretty cool. She waits for Hatch to say something… But Hatch doesn't. He just stares at Kurt, one eyebrow slightly raised. It's like they're speaking telepathically or something, because horrified realization dawns on Kurt's face. "What?"

"You're an apex predator, Kurt," replies Hatch, leaning towards him. His eyes flicker over to Mercedes, then back to Kurt. He holds that gaze until Kurt looks away.

Apex predator… Mercedes searches her memories. It sounds familiar. Apex predators…

Kurt's sliding out of his seat. He tugs on Mercedes' shirt sleeve (since she's still sitting on her hands). She jerks her body away, about to retort that she and Hatch were in the middle of a conversation that he'd so rudely interrupted; but she shoots a glance at Hatch first and notices that the man is no longer at his desk. He's staring out the window, his hands folding behind his back. He's obviously not willing to talk anymore.

Kurt pulls on her shirt sleeve again, and Mercedes reluctantly slips out of her chair and follows Kurt out of the room. "Kurt!" she hisses when the door closes behind them. "I was talking with Hatch about something super important!"

"Your hands?" Kurt's eyes flick down, as if, like Artie, he can see through her body to where she's hiding her hands behind her back. He sighs, jutting his hip to the side and propping one arm against it. "'Cedes, we have bigger fish to fry. You like Puck—" She almost interrupts him in protest, but he continues on, "And I like Finn. We have to keep them from _killing _people!"

"But we're apex predators," Mercedes exclaims, finally remembering what it means. "We're the next stage in evolution. They're just like animals compared to us. If they have the nerve to hurt one of us, then there shouldn't be a problem if we hurt them back." She pauses. "At least, that's what Hatch said."

Kurt shifts his weight to his other hip uncomfortably. "Animals or not," he finally says, "Let's stop them before things get messy."

It takes Mercedes a fraction of a second to agree. Still, there's the hesitation. It's just that… well, Hatch has been telling them for so long that they're a step above normal humans. He and all their teachers have told them over and over. And teachers don't lie. Hatch would never lie to them.

The corner of Kurt's mouth twitches upwards. "You know, 'Cedes, someday, those magnetic hands might come in handy."

It takes her a couple seconds, but she can't help but smile back at his pun. She holds out her hand for him to take, metal odds and ends stuck to it and all. Kurt takes it without hesitation and Mercedes' heart warms towards her best friend. "Let's go bail our boys out of trouble," she smiles.

* * *

><p>And so, on the same night that Puck and Finn secretly plot to sneak through the hallways down to Floor C, Kurt and Mercedes secretly plot to intercept them.<p>

Mercedes is pretty confident that they can stop Finn and Puck in their tracks. And it's not she cares if Puck gets mad at her. She doesn't even like him. But she's stopping him from potentially hurting the cute Irish technician for his own good. Even if Damian's a normal human (just like Hatch), that doesn't give Puck the right to hurt them whenever he wants.

Hatch _had_ said something about that too; that, even though the Elgen staff is composed of normal humans, they're still doing their best to foster a great environment. Abuse of their superpower would be punishable by the revoking of that caring environment. Puck had immediately put that test to use by demanding a junk food diet and throwing fruit at random staff; in the end, he disappeared for a weekend and came back much meeker than before.

He kept muttering something about Cell 25.

Anyways, Mercedes doesn't know why Hatch isn't doing anything about Damian and Michael this time. Threatening to hurt two technicians is definitely a lot more serious than pelting maids with apples and bananas. Why didn't Hatch react similarly to Kurt's tattle-telling?

Her and Kurt's plan is pretty simple; after all, they _are_ the two strongest kids here. Finn and Puck might pack it in size and destroying power, but she and Kurt are a balanced team: she's the brawn and Kurt's the brains. Literally. The power to control metal and telepathic emotive stuff? She'll just seal the door and the ventilation shafts close and Kurt will calm them down. Simple.

Still, Kurt seems pretty nervous, and whenever Kurt feels strongly, everybody around him feels nervous. She cuffs her friend lightly on the shoulder. "Stop that," she chides gently.

"Ouch!" hisses Kurt, grabbing his thin shoulder. "That hurt, 'Cedes!"

"I barely hit you!"

Kurt levels her with a flat stare. "You throw cars and crush metal stoves into baseball-sized lumps on a regular basis."

Mercedes furrows her brow. "Point taken. …But seriously, you're nervous and it's making me nervous too. Don't worry about it, Kurt! You and me… we can do it! I cage them in, and you—"

Somebody knocks softly on the door. Though it doesn't initially scare Mercedes, Kurt jumps an inch in the air and the aftershock hits Mercedes.

Kurt looks at her in paranoia. "What if it's Finn?" he whispers.

Mercedes takes a moment to compose her nerves. "Get control of yourself," she retorts. "You've got me all jittery now. And that knock was too light to be Finn. I bet you've scared Brittany. She's next door, you know."

Kurt just gives her a skeptical side eye.

"I'll open the door," she groans, getting to her feet.

"No!" Kurt almost barks, making a grab for her arm and barely reducing his volume to a quiet whisper. "What if it's Finn and he sees me—"

Mercedes dodges swiftly out of his reach and dances over to the door. She yanks it open and peers out into the dark corridor, expecting tall Brittany—which is probably why she doesn't see anybody until her eyes drift downwards to land upon short Sunshine.

"Sunny?"

Sunshine sticks her head through the crack in the door and looks around Mercedes' body. "Are you okay, Kurt?"

Mercedes steps out of the way and looks at her room, now apparently devoid of Kurt. "Kurt?"

Sunshine steps into the room and closes the door behind her. "It's just me, Kurt," she murmurs softly. "You don't need to be afraid."

Kurt's head pops out from underneath the bed. "Who says I'm afraid?" he says haughtily.

"I can feel it."

"I'm just nervous," replies Kurt dismissively. "Afraid? No."

"I feel it," Sunshine insists, leaning against a wall and crossing her legs. "Those drugs that Nurse Beiste gives me before missions basically make me unable to feel emotion. But that only means that, after the drugs wear off, I have horrible mood swings. And…" She stares guiltily down at her feet. "And I get really sensitive to your power, which is why I hide in my room so much."

"Oh, Sunny," Mercedes gasps sympathetically.

"You're afraid," continues Sunshine. "You have that pre-test nervousness. I know that feeling pretty well. Kurt, how can I help you?"

Kurt glances at Mercedes, then back at Sunshine. Before Mercedes can say more than a word of advice, Kurt's pouring out the entire story to Sunshine.

Mercedes doesn't really want to involve more people—especially innocent Sunshine. But before she knows it, Sunshine's hopped on board with the plan. "If we don't work, Sunshine can always knock them out," Kurt defends. "That might make Finn really angry at me… but as long as he doesn't go downstairs and seriously mess up with Michael and Damian… then I think that's what's good for Finn." He glances at her. "For Finn and Puck's own good."

"For Finn," responds Mercedes, a careful reminder that _no_, she doesn't like Puck. Of course not.

And the plan would have gone all nice and dandy, if Finn and Puck hadn't already escaped the dorms, the edge of the metal door out of the common room still melted and molten where the doorknob used to be.

* * *

><p><strong>Kurt Corcoran<strong>

* * *

><p>If they hadn't spent so much time planning… if Sunshine hadn't come over and distracted them… if they'd had their planning session in the common room instead of Mercedes' room…<p>

So many what if's, but what it really boils down to is that, if he, Mercedes, and Sunshine want to stop Finn and Puck, the three of them have to follow the boys downstairs.

Mercedes audibly gulps at this.

"Please, 'Cedes," Kurt begs. "We have to go."

"We're breaking the rules," Mercedes whimpers. "I was okay with staying inside the common room, but Kurt! We're not supposed to leave the common room. We should just tell Hatch—"

"No! The point of us stopping them is to_ prevent_ them from getting into trouble! If we call Hatch, then Finn will just get into trouble a lot earlier than normal."

"And Puck," Mercedes reminds Kurt. "Puck will also be in trouble."

"When is Puck _not_ in trouble?"

"Point taken. But 'Cedes! We're going to prevent them from getting into even more trouble than they usually are in! We have to go! Right, Sunshine?" Kurt glances around for the Asian's backup, only to find that the tiny girl is no longer with them. "Sunny?"

"Puck and Finn left the stairway doors open," Sunshine hisses from a distance. Kurt pokes his head out of the common room and peers down the hallway. He can barely see Sunshine's tiny form all the way at the end of the hallway. "Let's go," the girl motions, waiting patiently by the open stairwell doorway.

Kurt retracts his body back into the common room and turns pleadingly back to his best friend. "See? Sunshine cares about our boys too!"

Mercedes shakes her head and takes a step back towards the girls' dorms. "Kurt, I don't want to break rules to prevent others from breaking even more rules," she whispers. "I'm going to call Hatch."

"No! Don't!" Kurt whisper-yells into Mercedes' face. "_Don't_."

Mercedes cringes underneath Kurt's pressure. He realizes that he's unconsciously using his power to intimidate her and shamefully pulls back, both physically and mentally. "Please, 'Cedes. At least wait half an hour until you call Hatch. Please?"

Mercedes takes another step back, but she nods wordlessly at him.

Kurt leaps forward and hugs her. "Thanks, 'Cedes," he murmurs. "I'm a little angry that you're not coming down with me for Finn and Puck, but I understand. Don't call Hatch, okay?"

Mercedes nods again. Kurt only feels her head movement against his neck, but it's enough. He darts away from his friend and down the hallway towards where Sunshine is waiting.

* * *

><p>The path that Finn and Puck took is pretty easy to follow—mostly because there's burning metal left behind Puck's path of door destruction. He and Sunshine pick up the pace, following the trail through Floor C's molten doorways.<p>

Sunshine is abnormally quiet. Kurt's been on a couple missions with Sunshine and her current attitude scarily reminds him of all those times. All those times when she emotionlessly blinded or paralyzed or knocked people unconscious. But this time, Kurt knows that Sunshine hasn't taken any drug. Not unless she has reserves in her room.

But when he brushes lightly across her mind, he can't feel anything. It's not really like a zombie—empty blackness, like Sam's mind…. Kurt pushes the thought away quickly. No, there's definitely stuff in Sunshine's mind, but there's a solid shield around her that prevents Kurt from influencing her. And probably prevents any emotion from springing free and making decisions for her.

Has she gotten used to this? Maybe, because she has never felt emotion on a mission, when she experiences something similar, she adopts the same attitude. This isn't a mission, but it feels like a mission. They've done plenty of interference missions before, where they've stopped other people from carrying out evil plans. This is sort of the same, right? He and Sunshine are on their own interference mission: prevent Puck from convincing Finn to electrocute a technician.

So Sunshine doesn't have emotion anymore. How is that going to change how they deal with Puck and Finn?

Kurt doesn't get to think about that very long, because they run around a corner and nearly bowl straight into their targets. Puck whirls around, his hands rippling with heat and ready to attack. Sunshine merely thrusts an open palm at him, blinding him temporarily. "Quiet," she hisses as Puck clutches his eyes with his blazing hot hands and growls. Kurt winces, but Puck seems pretty fire-resistant. He doesn't even flinch as he rubs his eyes with hands hot enough to melt through stainless steel.

"Kurt?" Finn looks at him distrustfully.

"Finn, stop," Kurt pleads. "Don't do this. I know we're apex predators and stuff, but Hatch said that we shouldn't attack the staff for no reason. They're doing their best—"

"Except they," Finn jerks a thumb at the door behind him, "They weren't doing their best at all. They _know_ that I can't stand water, yet the dumb British guy—"

"—Irish—"

"—decided to spray me anyways." Finn cracks his knuckles menacingly. "And he deserves to pay for that."

"Hatch already punished them," Kurt insists.

Puck whirls on him, his eyesight restored. "You told on us?" he snarls. "You tattled, didn't you?"

Kurt shrinks into himself. He might be the one who can manipulate emotions, but with Finn looking at him with that disappointment expression of betrayal, Kurt can't help but mumble, "N-n-n-no."

_That boy's got you on a leash_, Mercedes' voice echoes inside his mind. _And he's just tuggin' you along_.

_But it's_ _Finn__,_ Kurt mentally defends, before he realizes he's arguing with himself and shuts this particular mental function down.

Puck looks at Kurt suspiciously, but Finn steps up to Puck. "I trust Kurt," he defends. Kurt's heart blooms with warm pleasure. Finn is _defending_ him against Puck.

Puck stares hard into Finn's eyes. "We better not get in trouble for this," he mutters, heating his hand again and placing it against the technician's door. "Otherwise it's all on you, Kurt. It's going to be all your fault."

Kurt grabs Finn's arm and yanks him back. "Really? You're going to blame it all on me?" he exclaims incredulously. "The moment Hatch sees all those burn marks on Damian's body, they'll _know_ it was you. None of that will be my fault."

Puck glares at Kurt. "No way."

Kurt feels just a little bit bolder, especially since Finn looks a little hesitant now. "Finn, please."

Finn glances at Puck, then down at Kurt. "We're not going to kill them," he assures Kurt, easing his arm out of Kurt's grasp and standing next to Puck. "We're just going to rough them up a bit."

"Sunshine!" Kurt cries, grabbing at straws. "Sunshine, we're—" His words die in his throat the moment he catches her eyes: flat, lifeless, and dead. He reaches forward, experimentally tapping against her mind—and confirms that she's entered mission mode.

He's lost his only ally. Mercedes is hiding upstairs and Sunshine has gone over to the dark side and he can't prevent Puck from dragging Finn down with him.

He opts to use his power, only to find that he has unconsciously put it to work already. And yet… Puck's mind remains steadfast, unchanged by his superpower. Finn likewise is more resistant than usual. Have they been practicing against him? Could they actually develop resistance to his superpower?

Kurt panics. "You can't do this!"

Finn suddenly pulls Kurt into a side hug. It's actually sort of sad how Finn's physical touch immediately drains the tension out of Kurt's body. "Don't worry about me, Kurt," Finn says lightly. "I won't be killing anybody tonight."

_But this is a mission_, Kurt rebuts in his head. _Sunshine is in mission mode. You're all on a mission. And missions __always__ end up with someone dead._

Puck kicks in the metal door. It crashes against the wall with a resounding bang. There are two cries from within—a bit of fear kicks up in Kurt's stomach when he recognizes Damian's voice as one of them. The other voice… is not Michael.

"Whoa," the Irishman says, backing up to the control panel. "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know—"

"You'd be an idiot not to know," Puck growls.

"I—oh my god, your hands! They're on fire!"

"That's right," comes Finn's arrogant voice. it's an emotion that Kurt has _never_ heard in Finn before. Not Finn. Finn is a gentle giant, with his goofy half-grin and warm bear hugs. Not this… this jerk who's ganging up on an unarmed human.

Kurt doesn't want to see, but at the same time, he _has_ to confirm that it's Finn speaking, and not Puck or Sunshine cleverly imitating Finn's voice. His body moves of its own accord, stepping through the doorway and into the tiny surveillance room, now occupied by four more persons. Though Damian is at least two heads taller than Finn, the tallest of the four children in the room, Damian and the second stranger are pressed up against the wall, frightened of the fire dancing along Puck's forearms.

Sunshine suddenly darts forward. The two technicians gasp as their vision goes out, leaving them open and vulnerable for the leg sweep that hits the back of their knees. The two fully-grown men go down like trees; Damian hits his head on the counter, his grunt of shocked pain morphing into partially silenced screams when Puck leaps onto his fallen body and applies his flaming hands.

"Sunshine!" Kurt yells, not bothering to keep his silence. It's obvious the Asian girl has disabled Damian—blocked his vision and relaxed his vocal chords to the point of muteness—but the man's sight and sense of touch is just as functional as ever, and he has nothing left to do but writhe on the ground in pain. "Sunshine, stop!"

Sunshine doesn't respond in the slightest.

"Puck, get off!" Kurt steps forward, then takes a step back. He wants to yank Puck off the body, but he doesn't want to get hurt himself. All he can do is watch Puck begin to punch the jerking body beneath him, tears rising to his eyes.

"Everybody knows Finn's allergic to water," Puck growls, marking every word with a flaming punch. "E-ve-ry-bo-dy. Only idiots like you would take advantage of that. Think you're better than us, huh? Trying to put my man Finn down, huh? We'll show you."

"They're just like animals," Finn begins to whisper to himself. "We're apex predators. They're just like animals."

"They _are_ animals," Sunshine intones from the other side of the small closet-sized room, both hands trained on either technician. The second technician's eyes are wide open, glasses askew, bushy sand-colored hair a mess. His lanky body lies immobile on the floor, twitching occasionally. He's frothing at the mouth. Like an animal. They're just animals.

"They're just animals," echoes Finn.

"And they dared to mess with us," Puck roars.

"So we maintain the right to punish them," Sunshine chants.

Kurt looks at the three of them—the emotionless Asian doll in the corner, the furious boy abusing Damian's body, and the certainly-very-big and not-so-friendly giant standing nearby. And of course, the two animals on the ground, pathetically sniffling and whining and frothing at the mouth.

The animals.

They maintain the electricity. They keep up security. They cook good food and wash the laundry. They clean up the toys and run medical tests. But when it comes down to it, they're all just animals. They work for you, and if they misbehave, then you punish them to get them back on the right track. And if they cross the line too many times… the apex predator maintains the right to finish them off.

It's much easier to believe with these two pathetic, shuddering messes on the ground. Just like frightened dogs wetting themselves. That's all they are.

Kurt forces himself to believe it. It's been taught to them for years now. Hatch has told them this at every opportunity. And now he _has_ to believe it—because thinking of the current situation any other way is horrifying.

In the back of his mind, he finally, _finally_ understands why Sunshine needs to feel no emotion.

"Finn," Puck says, rising from the jerking, twitching body. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Finn looks at Kurt, confusion swirling in his eyes. Kurt looks at the ground. Not Damian. Not the new guy with a cool Irish accent Mercedes had gushed about months ago. Not Damian. "Animals," he murmurs—maybe only to himself; but Finn seems to hear.

"Animals," Finn echoes yet again. Bolts of electricity bounce between the boy's hands, lighting up the room with an eerie blue. "Animals. They're animals." He pauses, and Kurt looks up at Finn, a lingering hope daring to believe that Finn might have some small amount of hesitation preventing him from… from what? What is Finn going to do?

Finn purses his lips. "Animals… They all die in the end."

And then he channels his electricity into the body.

* * *

><p><strong>Will "Hatch" Schuester<strong>

* * *

><p>"He's dead, isn't he?"<p>

"That's beside the point, Finn. Do you remember what you felt in that surveillance room?"

"Sunshine... she was different. She was, uh, really scary."

"Finn, again, I'm asking you: what did _you_ feel?"

"And Puck! He kept egging me on. He beat up Damian really bad but he _wanted_ me to finish him off."

"And what did you feel, Finn?"

"They're... um..." - _long pause_ - "...They're just animals."

- _silence_ -

"And we're the apex predators."

- _pause_ -

"We... have the right to punish them."

"Are those your words, or Sunshine's?"

"...No. No. Damian hurt me. It's, like, only fair that I hurt him back. Right?"

"You tell me, Finn. What do you _believe_?"

"I... believe... I believe that... we're above them, right? ...uh... so we have the... the _right_ to punish them. Like hitting a dog on the nose for peeing on the carpet. I just shocked Damian. A lot. He's okay, isn't he?"

"He's fine, Finn. He's recovering down on Floor D."

"Just like Sam, right? Sam stayed down at Floor D until he was all better, right?"

"Yeah. Until Sam was healthy enough to go back home. But we're not talking about Sam, Finn. We're talking about you. Today was a big day for you, wasn't it?"

"I'm really tired. My mind hurts."

"It's because you learned an important lesson today. You see, Finn, the teachers can teach you things all day long, but it's events, like what happened today, that really, _really_ help you learn. Not school. So tell me again, Finn: how did you feel when you were shocking Damian?"

"...I... I was angry. ...That's bad, right?"

"No. No, Finn. That's _good_. Like hitting a dog for pooping in the house. Like shocking a human for kicking you in the crotch."

"But he didn't kick me in the crotch."

"No, he did much worse. So what you did back to him wasn't so bad at all, was it?"

"...No. Not really. ...When he squirted me with water... if Lucy hadn't drained away my electricity, I think I would have electrocuted myself. It hurt so much."

"Yes, Finn. You and Lucy... you two learned two very important lessons today. And as long as you remember that, Finn, you're going to be as powerful as Zeus."

"Zeus. I... I like that name."

"Zeus? Greek god of all the gods and goddesses. Tossed around thunder and lightning as a display of his glorious might and awe-inspiring power. I think you may very well fit that role someday, Finn. With proper training, we at Elgen can get you there. As long as you remember what you've learned today."

"Um... uh..."

"Yes, Finn?"

"I... uh... what did I... what was..."

"Remember what Damian did to you. And remember what you're doing back is _not_ revenge; it's only justice."

"It's only right that we punish them."

"Yes, Finn. This is a lesson that even Kurt and Puck have not learned yet. Because you alone are the first one to have learned this, Finn, I'm promoting you."

"Promoting?"

"I'm giving you more rights. More authority. More training. More missions. This is just the beginning of your reign, Zeus."

* * *

><p>"You wanted to see me?"<p>

"Thank you, Lucy. I wanted to recommend you for your bravery today. You ran into the surveillance room that was full of electricity and practically tackled Finn, preventing him from letting loose with everything he had. That took guts."

"Well... Mercedes brought me there in the first place... and I... I just didn't want Finn to do something that he might regret."

"Lucy, I see you haven't quite learned the right thing yet. And I was just about to tell you so much more."

"Is this about the apex predator thing? Everybody keeps saying that. Our teachers. Mercedes. Sunshine. Puck. Even Brittany! Everybody says it."

"Do you understand it?"

"...Sort of."

"Can you explain it to me?"

"I'm not dumb, you know? People think I'm an ugly fat redhead with a big nose to compensate for no brains. I know brainwashing when I see it."

_- silence_ -

"Okay, that came out wrong. I'm sorry, Hatch. I'm not accusing you. But I can't help but feel like I'm being manipulated."

_- pause -_

"I... I should have just kept my mouth shut, huh? I'm sorry. But... would it help if I said that I do believe it? I mean, look at Finn. That's not human. I guess we really are the next step in evolution. We have the advantage. We have the power to defend what's right. _I_ have the power to prevent Jeff and Nick from pressuring Thad into bullying other people. I can put Kitty back where she belongs. I can... what, drain energy?"

"Lucy, we are still prying into the depths of your power. Even now, although Mercedes and Kurt have been with us at Elgen for over five years, we are still finding out more and more about their powers. So yes, we do not quite yet know the extent of your power, but from what we've observed, you're a groundwire."

"A what?"

"You're like a lightning rod. You draw everybody else's electricity into yourself and pass it harmlessly into the ground. You're not affected and neither is anybody else. Finn can't electrocute you; Puck can't burn you; Artie can't see through you; Kurt can't frighten you. You are invincible."

- _stunned pause -_

"I thought it was just Finn."

"Everybody's power here at Elgen is based off some sort of electrical manipulation. Finn's is the most obvious, but Brittany can reach into other people's minds and shut off pain receptors. Sunshine can disrupt electrical communication between the brain and the body. Mercedes converts her electricity into a magnetic field. You, however, take all of that electricity and push it into the ground, where it's harmless. They can't affect you at all, and that's why _you're_ the next step up in human evolution. Lucy, you are the apex predator of all the apex predators."

* * *

><p>While I certainly expected Puck and Finn to retaliate violently, I had <em>not<em> intended so many children to get involved.

A brief rundown of events:  
>- Surveillance technician Damian breaks protocol and interrupts class to assault teacher with water gun<br>- Finn is caught in crossfire. Self-electrocution damage is minor.  
>- Finn and Puck plan retaliation.<br>- Kurt finds out and comes to tell me. I communicate that it necessary for the children to fully comprehend the extent of their evolution, and that they should approach and deal the situation with whatever their instincts tell them to.  
>- Puck and Finn sneak down to Floor C.<br>- Kurt and Sunshine follow about half an hour later. Mercedes hangs back reluctantly.  
>- Puck jumps on the opportunity to beat Damian to a bloody, burnt pulp.<br>- Sunshine soon backs him up. She recites the information we've drilled into her head, convincing both Kurt and Finn to imagine things a different way. As Sunshine puts it herself, "the fruit bowl as she_ perceives_ it to be."  
>- Meanwhile, upstairs, Mercedes gets so worried that she sneaks across the hallway and wakes up Lucy. After much convincing, Mercedes persuades Lucy to go downstairs with her.<br>- Finn nearly kills Damian.  
>- Lucy is attracted by the lightning and drains Finn's power by hugging him from behind. Finn immediately collapses in her arms and begins to cry.<br>- Unbeknownst to most, she also drains everybody else's power—Sunshine's, Puck's, Kurt's, and even Mercedes' power.  
>- Damian has been placed in a Sunshine-induced coma. Technology based off Brittany's power is being utilized to speed his healing—with the convenient side effect of short-term memory loss.<br>- I have now scheduled appointments for the six children involved in the Damian fiasco.

Notes:  
>- Sunshine entered her usual emotionless state. The change occurs at her own will and in the absence of synthetic drug. Though observed for several months, it is still slightly disturbing.<br>- Kurt remains on the fence, frequently jumping between either side. Though he shows much promise, I have reason to believe that Finn may now be a better candidate.  
>- Finn also sat on the fence but easily succumbs to authority. He will be the easiest to train and the easiest to mold; he lives off praise and love. Still doesn't quite believe the mantra: "They're just animals."<br>- Puck is _not_ a good candidate due to his tendency to defy authority. We at Elgen at looking for responsible warriors, not spontaneous firecrackers. In addition, Puck's morality is compromised. This maybe be due to him imagining his father, one of his old neighborhood rivals, or a traitorous friend as the one he's beating up.  
>- Lucy showed leadership and daring when she barged into a high-tension situation: Finn electrocuting a staff member.<br>- surprisingly, Lucy actually _reversed _the progression of Mercedes' magnetism, which had been progressing to the point of pulling scrap metal out of every available area. Due to Lucy's reversal, it's possible that Mercedes' condition will have stabilized by next month.  
>- Michael has been demoted to guinea pig after the Damian fiasco. The children won't be seeing much of him anymore—though frankly, I don't think he's going to last very long in Floor D.<p>

- A final note: an unexpected electromagnetic pulse has disabled an entire town's electronics. We have reason to believe that this may be due to the manifestation of a superpower belonging to a certain Blaine Anderson...

* * *

><p><em>Author's Rant<em>

_Failing classes again. Hence, writing has taken a back burner in my list of "Important Stuff." Still, after several months of barely scraping by on my classes, I decided to start writing again. And it was definitely fun. I think I wrote this chapter in six hours. Takes a while, I tell you. Reviews much appreciated._

_Thanks to **vampireharrythe2** for reminding me this story still exists, and for **gleefulter, Megachrisfan, Rawr413, Isabel4014, sillystarshine, youdon'tknowme06, TealCrystalCAT,** and **JasonDragon64** for leaving reviews for this particular chapter detailing Lucy's first year at Elgen. Whew! It took me forever to write, but Lucy's introduction has finally been wrapped up._

_Onto Blaine! If I ever have 6+ hours of free time in my near future... -_-_

**Words: **16,000**  
>Parts:<strong> (3/3)**  
>New Additions: <strong>Lucy**  
>Cameos:<br>**~ Jeff, Nick, and Thad are members of the Dalton Warblers from Glee, season 2.**  
><strong>~ Kitty is a new cheerleader from Glee, season 4.  
>~ Dianna Agron is name of the actress who plays Quinn on Glee.<br>~ Bryce and Maxfield were the first to be eliminated from the first and second seasons of The Glee Project, respectively.  
>~ Marissa von Bleicken was a first season Glee Project contender who was eliminated in the sixth episode. In this story, she got out of time on Floor D by teaching the children.<br>~ Hannah McIalwain as Elgen's history teacher. In this story, she's a prisoner who got out of time on Floor D by teaching the children. In real life, Hannah was a contender of first season of The Glee Project. was eliminated from the competition in the eighth episode.  
>~ Damian and Michael were contenders from the first and second seasons of the Glee Project, respectively. Damian won the first season and played Rory McFlanagan on Glee; Michael was sent home in a double-elimination during the penultimate episode. In this story, they're technicians who might be getting in over their heads...<strong><br>Total POVs: **Lucy, Artie, Brittany, Sunshine, Finn, Puck, Mercedes, Kurt, Hatch


	8. Eleven Years Old

**Blaine Anderson**

* * *

><p>"Unique, I think I'm the youngest one here."<p>

"Of course you are, hun! You skipped a grade, didn't you?"

"That was first grade! A really long time ago! I just… I feel so out of place."

"And that's why you're here, Blaine. Every time I call, you're always in the middle of some Star League game—"

"Starcraft and League of Legends are two different games."

"Whatever, Blainey. What I'm trying to say is that this is the perfect place to meet new people and make new friends!"

"…A middle school Sadie Hawkins dance?" Blaine looks up at the banner hung over their junior high school entrance. "I'm not even dressed up!"

Unique presses a firm hand into his back and pushes him up the stairs. "Don't worry about it, Blaine. We're not in high school yet. This is totes informal."

And it definitely is nothing like what he'd imagined a school dance to be. No dresses, no tuxedos… just a bunch of strangers his age in shorts and tees. Remixed versions of the most current popular songs blast over the overhead speaker. There isn't much dancing either—more hopping up and down, not necessary in time to the beat. The dance floor is well-lit and teacher chaperones hover watchfully at the edges of the gymnasium, making sure that no funny business occurs between certain couples.

Unique tries to pull him into the fray, but Blaine resists. When Unique had called him in on a favor earlier that day, he'd never been expecting something like this. He'd rather be at home in his own company. He's perfectly fine playing computer games by himself for hours on end.

Nobody's there to judge him when he's alone.

But here… it feels like the entire school is here. Well, maybe not the entire school; maybe just the in-crowd. Which makes it worse, because those are all the people who judge. They notice that his eyes pass over the girls and settle on the boys and they do more than whisper. They giggle and gossip and point and laugh, and sometimes they growl and glare and insult.

Unique, the "girl with a dick," is the only one who didn't do any of that. She just latched onto him three weeks into the semester and they've been friends ever since. Well, because it's only been their first semester of junior high, they're each other's only friend.

Blaine seats himself in a chair in a dark corner of the gymnasium, the farthest he can get away from the chaperones, and observes his classmates from afar. He's partially hidden by the bleachers, making him even less noticeable. Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders bop along to music that Blaine's never heard before. He doesn't recognize anybody here. Well, that might be an overstatement. He knows Wesley Montgomery over there from a couple League games; they team up frequently because they know each other's battle tactics, but in real life, they only nod at each other in acknowledgement when passing in the hallways.

And then there's Sebastian Smythe, star basketball player. Blaine's heart beat picks up a little bit. Sebastian's wearing a tank top that shows off his muscled arms. He's in the popular group, so of course he's surrounded by scantily-clad females—like Sugar Motta—and other muscly jocks—like Hunter Clarington.

Blaine averts his gaze reflexively; Hunter's one of the mean ones. He's the one who snaps at Blaine if he _thinks_ the younger boy is staring. Hunter and his group of friends are a huge reason why Blaine spends most of his time at school staring at the ground.

It doesn't help that, whenever Sebastian catches Blaine's eyes, Sebastian winks.

Blaine's in sixth grade. Sebastian's in eighth. And what's more, Blaine skipped a grade while Sebastian was held back, so technically, Blaine's only eleven years old while Sebastian is _fifteen_. Unique tells him that that's just _wrong_, but Blaine counters that he can't tell his heart what to do, his heart just _does_ it. Like flutter nervously and do little tap dances whenever Sebastian winks at him.

When he told that to Unique, the girl had huffed in exasperation and told him that Sebastian was probably just baiting him so that Hunter could have somebody to beat up. Both Hunter and Sebastian were pretty much born in Lima Heights Adjacent, so even though Hunter's a year younger, they're practically twins.

Blaine finds himself staring at Sebastian again. It's not like Hunter can spot him hidden in this dark corner, right? This is a pretty good position to watch Sebastian dancing. He's one of the few who's doing more than jumping up and down; sometimes his shoulders shake in an irresistible shimmy; his arms weave invisible patterns in the air; he rocks back and forth, synchronized to the music. And his hips. Oh god, his hips. Sebastian's whole body rolls with them, his torso undulating in time with the beats. Blaine can't stop staring at them.

He can't stop staring at Sebastian until he notices somebody approaching him.

He immediately leaps to his feet and tries to escape, but his path is blocked by another boy. Hunter and his two friends all close in on him, trapping him in the dark corner. He wonders if he could make a run for it—squeeze right between two boys—but then he recognizes Hunter right up front and he despairs.

Maybe he should call for help. Maybe he should scream. Maybe he should—

Hunter's fists grab handfuls of his shirt, hoist him high in the air, and slam him against the wall. All the air in Blaine's chest is forced out in a choked cough. He blinks back tears as Hunter snarls, "You were checking out my man Sebastian, weren't you?"

"N-n-no—"

"You were," growls Hunter, slamming Blaine into the wall again. "You _were_ checking him out, you sick little fuck." The bleachers obscure them from sight of the chaperones, which makes Blaine want to cry even more. He's so scared. Hunter's from Lima Heights Adjacent, a bad part of town. His older brother Cooper tells him that there are gangs and street fights and motorcycles there all the time, and somebody gets raped every day, and somebody dies there every day, and he really doesn't want to die, and the tears are streaming down his cheeks before he can stop them.

"No I wasn't," moans Blaine.

"You didn't even notice us until we were almost on top of you," Hunter sneers. "You didn't even notice. You were too busy thinking about freaky things to Sebastian, weren't you?"

"No!"

Hunter throws Blaine to the ground. The impact of concrete against his hands and knees is painful and Blaine is suddenly scared—scared for his life, they're going to beat him up and smash his head into the concrete and splatter his brains everywhere and he really begins to cry in earnest—

"Dude, what are you doing?"

It's Sebastian. Blaine's mind briefly comprehends this, but the waterworks have already started and it's hard to stop. All he can do is huddle on the ground, surrounded by three bullies, and hope that his life has just been spared.

Hunter snorts. "We're just teaching this little shit a lesson."

There's a pause. Blaine risks a glance upward. Hunter levels Sebastian with a challenging glare, and Sebastian… Sebastian's staring at his feet. Slowly, his eyes travel from his feet along the ground until they meet Blaine's. The expression on Sebastian's face… he seems to be at a complete loss. Uncertain of what to do. Hope flares to life.

"Hunter…" Sebastian begins hesitantly.

"You're not going to tell me you're a faggot too," scoffs Hunter, an almost dangerous glint in his tone. "A fucking man-lover, huh? A flaming—"

"No," snaps Sebastian quickly. "'Course not." He laughs. "No way I'm a sick fuck like him."

Blaine's heart is crushed.

Rough hands yank him to his feet and slam him face first into the wall. He trembles there, supported only by those threatening hands. His legs shake uncontrollably beneath him, yet his ears strain for any last words of redemption.

"So you don't mind us taking disciplinary action?" Hunter chuckles.

Another pause. "Go ahead, man."

* * *

><p>Agony.<p>

He screams, but they're hidden in that dark corner behind the bleachers and the music is too loud and the feet in his stomach hurt and everything is pain, everything burns. It all reaches a peak when a foot smashes into his jaw. Hot blood gushes into his mouth. Even as he squeezes his eyes shut, his entire vision goes pure, blindingly white.

Darkness.

Is he unconscious? Is he dead? But he's still acutely aware of a chaos of sensation. The kicking stops but the torture still goes on. Everything still hurts like hell and burns like hell. He's in hell. He's dead and everybody's screaming.

It's dark in hell. He can't see anything, but from what his ears tell him, everybody's running and screaming. Hundreds of feet pound through the floor and vibrate through his skull—minute aftershocks that hurt his brain.

The pain. It hurts to breathe. Every time he sucks in a breath, his chest twinges and his muscles clench. It's all concentrated within his torso, around his still beating heart; he can't feel his arms or legs and he definitely can't move them. All he can do is lie helplessly, unnoticed, in his lonely corner of the hell as everybody panics around him.

What happened to the lights? What happened to the music? He only just notices that the popular is gone—and so are most of the people. They're all leaving him. Is this what hell's like? Eternal pain and eternal solitude. Blaine wants to cry, except it hurts too much. Everything hurts too much.

"Blaine?"

Hands grab his shoulders a bit too roughly. The hot white light, after lying dormant for so long, rears up and explodes outwards violently. Blaine screams, one long cry of agony that echoes in his mind even as somebody wraps his arms around Blaine's body. _No, go away, leave me alone, you've hurt me enough—_

"Blaine, stay with me man. I didn't think… I didn't know Hunter would… just stay awake, okay?"

Words are lost on Blaine. He hears them but he can't understand a word. He's still being tortured. Hunter is still landing blow after blow to his face and chest. They ram his head into the concrete wall and toss his limp body to the floor. Their sneakers dig into his soft belly. And worst of all, their voices snarl at him, calling him the worst names imaginable, belittling his existence and wishing him _dead_.

He shies away. He screams and tries to resist when hands sling his unresponsive body over a shoulder and carry him from the darkness into the cold moonlit night. His mind is fading into silence as he's dumped in the front seat of a car, but he still tries to shield himself from the worst of the blows. He's sure he's dying. This agony is too much to bear.

"Blaine, you're going to be okay. I'm driving you to the hospital. Stay with me, Blaine! You're going to be okay, you hear?"

But things will never be okay. The torture's never going to end.

* * *

><p><strong>Wesley Montgomery<strong>

* * *

><p>The school dance was a lot of fun. It wasn't like the high school dances from TV shows, but in the end, bouncing around to catchy music with all your friends a lot more fun than Wes would have imagined.<p>

The last thing Wes remembers about the school dance is the exploding light bulbs. That, and his mind going crazy.

See, the thing about Wes' brain? It's different. And it's definitely something he hasn't told _anybody_ about… but his mind is its own wireless network.

People think he's really smart (after all, he _is _Asian), but what he's really doing is quickly looking stuff up online. Wes supposes that he's had the quality for quite a long time, but he only really noticed it two years ago when he joined elementary school Knowledge Bowl. During their final competition, he'd been suddenly able to answer the most random trivia questions, like every single event that happened in 1991, and the anatomy of a fluorescent light bulb, and the minimum wages of every state in America… Needless to say, they won by a landslide. His sudden wealth in knowledge allowed him to skip a grade, and suddenly, Wesley was this super smart Asian who everybody held up to super high standards. Really, Wesley had no choice but to follow along with the act that all his classmates and teachers and even parents held him up to.

With his family now proudly showing him off as the perfect Asian son, Wesley had to invest quite a bit of time into exploring his mental internet accessing powers. He soon found out that his power expanded to intercepting emails, listening in on other people's cell phone conversations, and catching radio waves. Basically, anything that uses an electromagnetic wave to transmit data… Wes can listen in on if he so chooses. He's his own wireless network, able to pick up and process all other wireless signals passing his way. Cell phones, radios, internet, and satellite are all things he can take a peek into.

Until that middle school dance when every electrical appliance exploded in what was later described as an EMP (also known as an electromagnetic pulse). Their tiny California town went completely dark at 8:34pm. Electronic communication ceased: cell phones wouldn't work, computers refused to start, every building's lighting burned itself out. Back up power generators kicked in then, allowing the hospital to stay working and the police to ensure public safety… but the town had barely gotten itself started back up again when a _second_ EMP disabled all of that.

In short, their town was left in chaos for about half an hour.

Which is when Elgen Inc. swooped in to save the day. They brought a mysterious source of endless electricity that brought the entire town back to life—and most importantly, got the hospital started up again. Countless lives were saved as medical technology was restarted. The hospital was soon able to take in new patients, the many who'd been injured during both EMPs.

People like Blaine Anderson. People like Wesley Montgomery.

* * *

><p>Information slowly leaks its way back into Wesley's befuddled mind. Strangely, it feels like there's another presence in his head. Or multiple presences. One blocks off portions of his mind while the other… opens portions up. He remembers that bright flash of white light that drove his mind crazy and into hiding. That flash had truly hurt him, so badly that he'd shut down all higher function and reduced his electronic capacity to just vitals, like breathing. Then he'd gotten stuck in a semi-conscious state, trapped in darkness but unable to climb his way out because that bright pulse of white light had taken away his higher functioning.<p>

Until that welcome presence, the tendril of electricity that is not his own, works its way into his mind and starts activating portions long unused.

His heart beat picks up. He hears a steady beep-beep-beep that increases as he resurrects from his state of unconsciousness. His breathing quickens and his eyelids flutter. He swallows. His mouth is really dry. Fresh air floods into his lungs, pushing his chest upward. Long misused muscles groan and stretch and it's a pleasurable sensation. He's finally _moving_ again.

"He's awake," a girl whispers. Wesley immediately likes her voice: gentle and happy and innocent. "He's finally awake!"

"Go get Hatch," sounds a second female voice. This one is a bit lower but is still pretty. "I'm still opening him up."

Wesley can _hear_ the pout in the first girl's voice. "But I want to help."

Wesley wants to communicate that he's here and can obviously hear them, so he tries to muster up something comprehensible. And of course, the first thing that slips out of his mouth is, "Urrggooowhurmoooie."

The first girl giggles lightly. Wesley likes this too.

The foreign tendril in his mind opens a door that Wesley suddenly wishes was left closed: his wireless communication network. After spending so long in a hazy, sleepy darkness, he's not prepared to selectively block out the violent onslaught of electromagnetic waves that washes over him. People communicating by telephone call, by email, by texting, paging, walkie-talkie, email, radio, satellite, wireless transmission—it all slams into Wesley's tired mind and he's clutching his head and screaming—

And then he's plunged back into darkness once more.

* * *

><p>The next time he wakes up, he gets much more time to orient himself. He keeps his sensitive mind closed, which is surprisingly easy (even back in school, he'd never been able to shut out all the signals completely). It's almost as if somebody's <em>helping<em> him to keep his wireless network down and out for now, and he appreciates it.

He scans his hospital room. There are two girls on one side of his bed; probably the ones whom he'd heard last time. One is tall and skinny with sparkly strings braided into her blonde ponytail. The other is a dark-skinned Asian, much like himself. They smile at him and he remembers their voices, but panic bubbles in his mind as an urgent thought pushes its way to the forefront: where are his parents? Shouldn't they be here by now? Shouldn't the hospital have called them to his bedside? He's their son, after all; the smart one they're so proud of. Why aren't they here?

There is another occupant in the room: a man in a sweater vest who's seated in a chair. Wesley automatically assumes that he is the authority here and confidently asks him the burning question on his mind—only it comes out more like a pathetic whimper. "Where are my mom and dad?"

The sweater-vested man leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Wesley, do you remember what happened?"

"The blackout?" He tries to think of what happened. The brilliant white light, followed by darkness. "How long has it been? And why aren't my parents here?"

"Wesley," says the man calmly. The steadiness of the man's voice should be stabilizing, but instead, it drives Wesley into even more panic. The suspension is killing him. The man needs to tell him where his parents are _right now_. He waits impatiently as the man continues, "You're been in a coma for six weeks."

His mind freezes in place then. "_What?_"

The man looks absolutely serious. Wesley tries to comprehend it. Six weeks? But it'd only been… well… he had been trapped in that semiconscious state of darkness. It'd felt like forever, yet it'd only felt like a couple seconds. That's what unconsciousness feels like, Wesley supposes.

"You were fairly close to death," the man continues. "Your body repeatedly tried to shut itself down and it almost succeeded. If we had not intervened, you would have never left the hospital alive."

"Wait… I'm not in the hospital?"

"Your parents approved your move to Elgen Corp. facilities for emergency treatment," the man explains. "The hospital did not have the proper technology to keep you alive."

Wesley stares at the man in confusion. Bits of rationality slip back into his mind. He may not be knowledgeable without access to the internet (and he's not willing to open up his mental wireless connection just yet), but he isn't dumb. He still possesses the ability to analyze situations. "Why would a private corporation have the technology able to treat me and not a government-funded hospital?"

The blonde speaks from the other side of the bed. It's the angelic voice that he'd liked, and it drains some of his stress away. "The hospitals don't have me and Sunshine," she says solemnly.

Wesley looks at the blonde strangely, but the man speaks up again and he turns to face him. "No, the hospital didn't have Brittany or Sunshine. You see, Wesley, both Brittany and Sunshine are possess abilities similar to yours."

Wesley tries to maintain a proper air of calm but fails horribly. His entire body freezes and he stares at the man blankly. "W-w-what power?"

The blonde—Brittany—pipes up again. "I've been helping you not feel pain," she says happily. "You and Blaine are hurting a lot in really, _really_ different ways, but I can help with both!"

The short Asian girl, Sunshine, adds, "And I… well, I usually disable sensory receptors, but in your case, since they were already disabled, I've been _enabling_ them again."

"We have reason to believe that an electromagnetic pulse disabled not only your power, but most of your brain's electrical activity along with it," the man says. "If Brittany had not insisted on bringing Artie to check out another hospital patient exhibiting similar electrical powers, we would have missed you entirely."

Wesley takes a second to comprehend this. "So… there are other people… like me?"

"A lot like you," the sweater-vest man agrees. "And they're all here, boarding here at Elgen."

Something hits a sour note in Wesley's mind. "…Boarding?" His parents had been talking about it beforehand—they'd wanted a higher education for him, more than just public school could provide. He'd objected strongly; he didn't want to leave his friends. He really didn't want to go to boarding school, trapped on a campus that he'd never be able to leave, surrounded by stuck up rich white boys and wearing uniforms and all that horrible stuff. His parents had listened and talked about it no more… but now…

Sure enough, the man confirms his worst fears. "Your parents agreed that Elgen would provide for all your academic needs. They did say that you might strongly object, but I can assure you, Elgen Academy is _not_ the boarding school you're imagining."

Wesley looks over at Sunshine and Brittany. They _had_ said that they possessed similar electrical superpowers, but he had no way of actually confirming that. Though Sunshine did say that she usually disabled certain functions… and he is keeping his wireless connection shut fairly well. Maybe she's helping him in that aspect?

As if reading his mind, the man continues, "You see, this boarding school is geared towards the education of the next step in human evolution: you. You, Wesley Montgomery, are no longer _Homo sapiens_; you are _Homo electricus._ And I, Hatch, will guide you towards your position as the world's newest apex predator."

* * *

><p><strong>Lucy Fabray<strong>

* * *

><p>Hatch told her that she was the apex predator of all the apex predators in Elgen, so it's only right that she begins acting that way. After years of neglect and abuse, Lucy is eager to claim her <em>right<em> for love.

And obviously, people are supposed to do whatever you tell them to when they look up to you. Just like Kitty's friends did, crowding around her at all times of day, offering juicy tidbits of gossip, agreeing with every word she'd say and echoing all her opinions.

So she opens up. She orders Puck to give her his slice of pie. She tells Kurt that his outfit is ugly and he needs to get rid of the heels. She takes Sunshine under her arm and advises her on how to seduce Wesley (based off techniques her older sister Dianna used to seduce half the school), because she's obviously in love with him. She demands that Artie push her everywhere in his old wheelchair. She insists that Mercedes harmonize with her while she sings in the shower. She snaps at Brittany when the other blonde uses her special set of colored pencils and she yells at Finn when the giant bumps into her in the hallway.

And they tolerate her for… well…

Puck refuses to give up his pie. He's the first one on her hit list.

Kurt tries to gossip with her about fashion, but she shuts down every one of his suggestions because… well, they're all pretty stupid.

"Guys don't wear pink feathers and leopard print jackets," she exclaims. "That's so…" She wants to say _gay_ because Kitty used that word all the time (_Ohmigod that's so gaaaay!_), but when she'd used that word her first day at Elgen, Puck, Finn, Mercedes, and Sunshine had all descended on her in righteous fury.

"What-_ehvar_," Kurt trills. "What planet did _you_ come from? This is _fashion_! I'll wear whatever I want. As long as I _work_ it, nobody can say no."

"You can't work pink boa feathers," sighs Lucy. "Kurt, Kurt, Kurt… I never thought you'd be so _dumb_."

The next day, Kurt bans her from his room for no reason at all! She stares at his locked door for all of two seconds before she adds name #2 to the hit list. Mercedes follows soon afterwards when she snaps, "Aw hell to the no, sweetie. I'm not down with this background singing nonsense. I am _Beyonce_; I ain't no Kelly Rowland!"

Puck, Kurt, and Mercedes. Well, they've been here at Elgen the longest, Lucy hears. She guesses that maybe, because they've been here forever, _they _think they're in charge of the place. Well, she has a power that could leave them all crying like little babies. The only reason why she doesn't shove their electric powers into the ground and make them _hurt_ is because Hatch specifically told her not to use powers on family members.

Well, they're totally like family. Just like Dianna and Mom and Dad on Friday night. Bitches, all of them.

Except for Finn. He apologizes like a true gentleman when he bumps into her in the hallway. Because he's so big and she's so little, she sprawls into the wall and hits her head hard (well, maybe she exaggerates, just a little. But he's such a huge guy!) He flinches when she yells at him, but he tries to help her to her feet. She ignores his hand and gets to her own feet before stalking away from him authoritatively.

He follows her. That's when she gets the first inkling that… no. It can't be possible. Nobody ever liked—like really _like-_liked—her in the past. Why would somebody start _like-_liking her now?

Anyways, she finally turns around and gracefully accepts his apology. That chases him off for the day. She waits until she's in the safety of her room before she squeals in delight. She then grabs Sunshine and dances over to Brittany's room and gushes about her secret lover. Sunshine smiles politely; Brittany tries to add her own two cents about magical unicorns and sparkly artichoke hearts, but Lucy talks loudly over her and Brittany eventually falls silent.

Artie just glares at her on the fourth day as he stashes his wheelchair in his closet "for good." Then he sweeps past her regally, a la diva style, walking away from her on his own two steady feet.

Lucy's shocked when, on the fifth day, Sunshine retorts that, just because she and Wesley are both dark-skinned Asians, it doesn't mean that they're destined for marriage and cute little Asian babies. When Lucy then assumes that they must be cousins or something, Sunshine divaliciously flips her hair into Lucy's face and stalks off angrily.

That means she's effectively made a rival. Though Lucy is initially put down by this, she realizes that her life is now complete: a secret lover (Finn), a posse (Brittany), plenty of haters (Puck, Kurt, Mercedes, Artie), and a rival (Sunshine). And then fence-sitters who aren't worth any mention (Wesley). And Blaine's still a vegetable, really, so he doesn't count.

Though Blaine might count as an enemy, because he takes up so much of Brittany's time. Lucy can't complain because it's Hatch's orders, but Brittany, Sunshine, and Kurt spend a lot of time helping Blaine to heal. He's been in Elgen's hospital wing for almost two months now, re-learning stuff like how to hold his bladder and how to string together sentences. Apparently his brain was hurt so badly that, if he'd stayed at a government hospital, he'd pretty much be an eleven-year old baby. A barfing, crying, sleeping, pooping baby in a diaper.

It's a sob story, but it belongs to a human on a lower level in evolution, so Lucy doesn't care. That's what Hatch tells her, at least; everybody is a step lower in the human evolution chain, so technically, people like Puck and Finn are like monkeys to her.

They're just animals, right?

* * *

><p>It's quite a while before she realizes that she's <em>lonely<em>.

It's not quite the same as before. Before, when she thought she was just a normal human bug, she was _below_ everybody. She was the scum of the school. Thad threw a pee balloon at her; Kitty hated her for even _existing_.

Now that she's _the _apex predator, she's _above_ everybody. And everybody still hates her. When Brittany isn't helping Blaine, Artie glares at Lucy and pulls Brittany away. She bosses Finn around when she can, but then Puck shows up, spits some hateful words at her, and steals Finn from her. Sunshine and Wesley _are_ hanging out a lot more, just like she predicted, but Mercedes scowls at her as if to say, _Don't break up their date or else I'll go all mama bear on you_.

Lucy decides it's not worth dancing in between the Asian couple and singing _I tooooold you soooo._ It's not like she really cared much anyways.

Still, she can't help but sob into her pillow at night. Hatch said she was better than the rest of them. Why don't any of them realize that and look up to her like they should? Why is she still as lonely as she was _before_ she came to Elgen?

* * *

><p>She <em>smells<em> him before she hears him. "Lucy? Are you okay?"

Lucy briefly considers the easy answer or the bitchy answer. She doesn't want to put up with his crap, especially since he smells a lot like crap too. She's not in the mood at all. "No," she finally snaps, resting her forehead against the countertop. "Go away, Finn. I hate you."

As is to be expected though, Finn doesn't leave. He takes a seat on a stool right next to her and patiently waits until she looks at him. "What are you still doing here?" she barks. "I told you to go away!"

"You're not okay," Finn says gently. "Can I help?"

Her lips are blurting the words before her mind can catch up. "Everybody hates me."

"Not everybody," Finn says solemnly. "I don't hate you."

"That's comforting," she scoffs, leveling him with a flat stare.

Finn is oblivious. "Actually… I really... uh… respect you," he murmurs shyly.

Lucy fakes a yawn and rests her head on the countertop again. Hmph. _Respect_ is nowhere close to _love._ "Tell me something I don't know."

There's a long silence. Lucy's about to slide off her stool and leave when Finn replies quietly, "You make me feel like there's still someone I can care for without killing them."

Lucy freezes. The raw intensity and vulnerability in his voice forces her to treat the situation seriously. She takes a good look at him for the first time since she's gotten here and notices little details she'd never tried to perceive before, like the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, or flecks of gold in his brown eyes, or the shaggy brunette hair that really needs fixing.

She has to ask. She shouldn't but she has to. "What happened to your family?"

Finn looks at the ground for the longest time before looking up at her. "I… My power." He lays his hands on his lap, palms facing up. They're big hands, she notices. He could play the piano. She'd tried lessons a couple years back, but her hands had been so tiny that she couldn't even reach an octave. But Finn's hands are huge, and as he shows them to her, little blue bolts of electricity run up his fingers before snapping out into the air and disappearing with a small crack. "I have nightmares about it all the time… the first time my power manifested. I jumped into our family swimming pool."

Lucy puts a hand to her mouth. "Oh, Finn…"

"I electrocuted all of them," Finn whispers, his voice cracking. "They all died because of me."

His hands twitch. Electricity snaps off them wildly as his emotions run away from him. Instinctively, Lucy grabs his huge paws with her own tiny hands, absorbing the mad power before it can destroy anything else. "Finn, it wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was—"

"It wasn't," she repeats firmly, putting her authoritative power behind it. "It wasn't your fault, Finn. You didn't know. Just like I didn't know." She squeezes his hands as much as she can, though it's not a lot because his hands are at least twice as large as hers are.

Finn sniffs back a huge loogie. Quinn winces but doesn't make a comment about it. Finally, he says, "Of course you didn't know. You didn't even know me before Elgen."

"Not that, you big idiot," she retorts. "I was talking about myself. I didn't know my own power until I hurt Brittany. And nobody would hurt Brittany on purpose! She's too sweet. But…" She pauses, unwilling to share her weakness. Until she realizes that what Finn had just shared with her is a pretty big weakness. He laid himself vulnerably in front of her. Why shouldn't she do the same?

She takes a big breath. "I was jealous of Brittany. And I still am. She's tall, blonde, super hot, super skinny… When I saw her, she just reminded me of all the pretty people in my life… like Kitty… and Jeff…" She shakes her head to clear away the memories. "And look at me. I'm fat and ugly, I hate my hair—"

"I like it red," Finn interrupts.

Lucy continues on as if she hadn't heard him. "—and even when I dyed it blonde, it still was super ugly. And these glasses are so gross, but I can't see anything if I don't have them on." She takes them off and wipes them on her shirt. When she puts them back on, they're as greasy as ever. "I'm just an ugly bitch and everybody hates me because of it. If I could be as pretty as Brittany, maybe everybody would love me." Tears flood her eyes as she's suddenly overcome with emotion. She's horrified that she's shared this with Finn—she's supposed to be a strong leading lady, not a sniveling loser.

She practically ejects herself from her seat and flies down the hallway towards her bedroom, yelling some terrible excuse before she slams her bedroom door behind her and hurls herself into her pillow, ugly crying like nobody's business.

So she doesn't hear Finn murmur, "But… _I_ love you."

* * *

><p><strong>Arthur Abrams<strong>

* * *

><p>It's been nearly two years since he came to live at Elgen and he finally has use of his legs.<p>

Artie's not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

Okay, that sort of came out wrong. Of course Artie's grateful that he's gotten back the use of his legs. He walks, runs, reaches, jumps, climbs, dances at every opportunity, just to remind himself over and over again that he doesn't have to sit on his bum all day.

But at what cost…?

He'd talked to Lucy about it once. About what Hatch and the teachers are doing. They're old enough to catch it, especially since they haven't lived at Elgen for as long as Kurt and Mercedes have. But the phrase "apex predator" gets bounced around _every day_. Artie knows brainwashing when he sees it.

Then it finally happens. Finn and Puck establish their superiority by almost killing a technician. Only Lucy, by diving headlong into a room that's exploding with electric bolts and tackling Finn to the floor, stopped the larger boy from frying the technician's body. What's so horrible about it, though, is that everybody comes out of the situation without any emotional scars. Completely unchanged. They almost _murdered_ somebody.

He tries to talk to bitch-mode Lucy about it when _he's_ pushing her around in _his _wheelchair. She announces that, after smelling the disgusting scent of burnt human flesh, she's going to go vegetarian. He refuses to push her around after that day; she's not the same Lucy he knew a week ago.

So actually, they _have_ changed. Artie no longer recognizes them as moral humans anymore. He wouldn't quite say that they're not human, but he can't relate to Mercedes or Sunshine or Puck or Finn. He'll play League of Legends with the other guys, fine, but there's always the nagging feeling in the back of his head, wondering whether his teammates might ever reach the point where they'd kill other people as mercilessly as they kill opponents on his computer screen.

With this shift in perception, Artie carefully chooses who to hang out with. Brittany's definitely one of his best friends. Others might say that she's too stupid to pick up on the whole "apex predator" shtick, but Artie doesn't think that's the case. No, it's the _fact_ that Brittany keeps her mind open to _every_ possibility. The blonde won't rule out a concept even if it involves tap-dancing unicorns or artichoke-heart-flavored ice cream or television shows about an all-boys boarding school where everybody is gay and hooks up with everybody else once a week. Brittany has the superpower of accepting all ideas at once. She believes that she is an apex predator, yet she also believes that she is a kind and caring human being with a love for life and laughter. And a love for love. A love for the body. She _loves_ physical contact and Artie isn't one to deny her the hugs, the hand-holding, the playful kisses.

And then there's Wesley. He's only been in Elgen for about three months and is still trying to find a place to settle in. It's taken him longer than most people because, even though Kurt and Sunshine and Finn and even Puck are inviting, Wesley still chooses to spend a lot of time hanging around by Blaine's bedside and holding conversations with him. Or, at least, Wesley does a lot of talking and Blaine attempts to mimic him sometimes. Blaine's still struggling with learning English all over again.

Brittany and Sunshine also spend a lot of time with Blaine to help with his healing. Artie's done his research, so he sort of knows how Sunshine helps: she usually shuts off sensory receptors during her missions (like knocking people unconscious or, even more selectively, creating blind spots in people's visions instead of making them entirely blind). However, in Blaine's case, she opens those receptors again. It's still up to Blaine to make those neural connections in his brain, but Sunshine makes it tons easier. Brittany also shuts off neural receptors, but they're a different kind—that of pain. That way, Blaine spends less time worrying about his body and more time focusing on regaining brain function. In just two weeks, he's been potty trained and has a small vocabulary (_yes_ and _no_ and _bathroom_ and _hungry._ _Hungry_ comes up a lot).

Anyways, because Artie's usually with Brittany, he sees Wesley quite a bit when they come to visit Blaine.

Blaine's awake when Brittany and Artie stop by. The curly-haired boy blinks sleepily when Brittany's hand creeps under the sheets and onto his foot; his eyes roll over from where they'd rested on Wesley to land on Artie.

"Hi, Blaine," Artie smiles.

Blaine mumbles back, "Hi."

"Feeling better?" Brittany inquires.

"Mmm." Blaine nods his head.

Nurse Beiste arrives, escorting Sunshine. Her brow furrows at the sight of the three children already crowding around Blaine's bed, but she says nothing. Still, with the mean old woman standing in the background, Artie feels nervous. Everybody does.

And then Kurt bounds into the room seconds later, breathless. "I want to help!" he exclaims.

Blaine stirs at the explosion of noise. Nurse Beiste shoots a glare at Kurt that causes Wesley and Artie to cringe, even though all they can see is the back of the burly woman's head. Kurt, however, is completely unaffected; he just bounces on the balls of his feet in the doorway to Blaine's room, just waiting for Nurse Beiste to say _yes._

Now this is a new development. Kurt usually spends his free time hanging around Finn. Artie can't exactly see any reason to Kurt wanting to be here. He could see how Kurt's power could be helpful; after all, Kurt stimulates certain areas of the brain—so, instead of manipulating receptors like Sunshine or Brittany, Kurt actually causes the release of brain chemicals that make Blaine happy or sleepy or whatever emotion Nurse Beiste would like him to feel in order to help with Blaine's learning process.

But Kurt generally has a reason for why he does stuff. He's spoiled, having been here the longest. Artie hears from Puck that there used to be a time when Hatch would give them _anything_ they wanted. Now Hatch is always too busy to spend time with them, but Kurt's still pretty spoiled. He doesn't do things because he's nice like Sunshine or Brittany; when he does things, he expects stuff back.

Artie makes a note of Kurt's sudden generosity to study later.

_Now_ Nurse Beiste directs her glare at Wesley and Artie. They flinch as she barks, "You two, out!"

"But—" begins Wesley.

"You two aren't needed for treatment," Nurse Beiste explains roughly. "It's hard enough with Brittany and Sunshine plus Kurt. I don't need another two kids getting in my way."

Artie and Wesley don't need to be told twice by the intimidating nurse; they scuttle out of the hospital wing, albeit reluctantly.

"I'm with Blaine all the time!" Wesley pouts. "What makes Kurt think he can just jump in whenever he wants?"

"Well…" Artie looks down at the ground as they walk in no particular direction. "Kurt's power actually helps."

Wesley looks at Artie carefully. "I thought Hatch told us not to talk about our powers."

"Hatch tells us a lot of things," Artie mutters conspiratorially. Too low for the surveillance cameras to pick up, he hopes.

He hadn't been there when Finn attacked the technician, but just _hearing_ about that camera room makes Artie super nervous. What if there are cameras everywhere? Is there a camera in the common room, listening in onto all their conversations? Is there a camera in his _bedroom_? Is he really in private when he snuggles into bed, or is there somebody watching him at all times of day and night?

Is there a camera in the _bathroom_?

Just the thought horrifies him.

As they converse, Artie finds that he's been unconsciously directing his and Wesley's steps towards the track and field outside. Wesley's discussing the education system when they step out into the sunlight. Both just happen to be wearing casual workout clothing—Wesley in sweats and Artie in a plain tee and shorts. Without even consulting each other, they both traverse over to the track and begin lightly jogging laps.

"I think I understand why my parents sent me here; I just don't appreciate that they sent me off to a boarding school without even asking for my consent," Wesley is saying as they start jogging. "They were talking about it before, but when I said no, they listened. I don't see why they'd suddenly change their minds."

"You were pretty serious," Artie replies. He feels a bit freer to speak now that there aren't any maybe-there-or-maybe-not-there secret cameras or microphones around (he hopes). "I know we're not supposed to talk about each other's powers, but frankly, knowledge is power, and after years of hobbling around in a wheelchair, I've come to realize how much I need it."

Wesley nods emphatically, agreeing. "Knowledge certainly is power."

"I think I already know what you do, but truthfully, I don't know what you won't tell me—"

"I can pick up on any electromagnetic wave I want," Wesley supplies immediately, shocking Artie. "Any sort of human-sent communicational signal, I can interpret."

Artie glances around conspicuously. "Uhhh…"

"We're of the same mind," Wesley says reasonably. "For instance, I have a feeling that a reason why you came out here was to avoid observation by certain authorities."

A smile slowly stretches its way across Artie's face. "I used to think it was just X-ray vision," he returns. "But recently, with a bit of work in the lab, it's developed to a lot more than that. The technicians call it _electrolocation_." He waits to see if Wesley can pick this up. After all, if he can interpret any electromagnetic wave, that should include the internet, right?

It takes a couple seconds before Wesley realizes Artie's intentions. Then it takes a bit longer than Artie expected, but Wesley finally answers, "Oh. You're like a bat, right? Echolocation. Except instead of using sound, you use electrons! Electrolocation!"

Artie beams at Wesley. "I can see anything, even if it's on the other side of a wall," he explains. "Especially if they're a big bright light. That's us," he quickly adds, noticing the look of confusion. "All of us. We have abnormal amounts of electrical activity. We're spewing out so many electrons, we even glow in the dark! That's why Hatch calls us Glows. And I think that's why he's gotten the technicians working on me so much." He lowers his voice and leans towards Wesley conspiratorially. "I think he's trying to copy my power."

Wesley catches on quickly. "So he can recruit more of us," he says, slowly to a stop. Artie stops along with him. "Sunshine's been telling me: at least one of us… Glows… comes in every year. Sometimes two. And then he tells us that we're apex predators."

Artie's breath catches and his heartbeat speeds up. This is it. The conspiracy. But should they really talk about this? It's the track, outside of the Elgen complex, away from all the prying cameras and microphones (he thinks, at least). But still… it's a conspiracy. And those are dangerous, especially to the ones discussing it.

Wesley seems to pick up on Artie's hesitance. "Hey, Artie, if we're on the same track…" He looks down at the red track loop they're currently standing on. "Well, literally and figuratively… Why is it so strange that we not share ideas?"

"…Okay," Artie agrees slowly. He begins jogging lightly again, slowly, just in case there is really a camera watching them. Wesley looks slightly annoyed but matches Artie's pace readily. "Originally, Brittany and I were called into the hospital to identify and treat Blaine. I was there to confirm that he was a Glow—you know, superpowered, basically—and Brittany was there to back up Elgen's "miracle equipment." 'Cause, you see, Blaine was jacked up on tons of pain medications that gave him like a million side effects. Elgen comes along with a small portable device that they say will relieve Blaine of his torturous pain. They hook him up and put on a show of the machine doing everything, but really, it's Brittany transmitting her electrical pain-dampening power through a superfine metal wire in the machine. Voila! Blaine is pain-free. His parents agree and we have Blaine. But then, we're leaving the hospital… and I see you. You're barely there, but I can tell you have a big bright light."

Wesley presses his lips together, and for a moment, Artie's afraid that the other boy has already realized the truth: he's not here because his parents wanted to send him to a great boarding school. He's here, locked up in Elgen, because Artie recognized him.

Artie quickly continues defensively, "So I do what I'm supposed to do and tell Hatch. Because we're on a mission, you know, and my job is to point out Glows! We return to the hospital the next day, except this time it's Sunshine instead of Brittany. And she does the same thing with the superfine metal wire, except she opens up parts of your brain that were inactive. Viola! Wesley is suddenly electrically responsive. Your parents agree and we have you."

Wesley nods his head uneasily, but there is no accusation in his eyes. "Okay… and now I'm going to attend school here for a while."

Artie breathes a sigh of relief and continues, hoping that Wesley won't suddenly turn on him. "Don't you see, though? That's what Hatch wants. He's been collecting Glows and he's told us it's for our protection. He tells us that other people might abuse us if they ever find out about our powers—and, seeing as a lot of us come from crappy backgrounds, we're eager to believe him. But then he starts to get into all this apex predator stuff. He's trying to alienate us from everybody else we know by saying we're above them and it's right that we get revenge and crap, you know?"

Wesley glances hesitantly at Artie. "Are you saying…?"

"He finds excuses to get us to stay," Artie says firmly. "I finally have the use of my legs back, but Hatch won't say anything about letting me go back home. He says my parents have decided to keep me here at Elgen, but I can't call them back at home. All I can do is send emails… and those are pretty easy to forge."

"So…" Wesley says slowly. "Do you want me to track those emails?"

Artie stops, his mental processes grinding to a halt. He'd just been trying to make a point that Hatch was _not _keeping them in Elgen for their own good. Sure, he had the use of his legs back, but he was paying a price for that even now: he couldn't find a way to properly contact his parents. And here's Wesley now… "Ah… actually, could you do that?"

Wesley takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out. "The problem is…" he looks sorrowfully at Artie. "I don't exactly have access to my power yet. It's… after I blacked out, it's like…" He pauses, searching for words. "I'm like Blaine," he finally blurts. "I'm learning things all over again. If I open up now, I just get a whole bunch of noise and I can't understand anything. Hatch doesn't know yet and I don't want to tell him that, but it's why I'm hanging out with Sunshine more now. So she can help me open up little by little too, until I get used to things again."

Artie tries to hide his disappointment—but wait a minute! If Wesley doesn't have access to his power, that means that he figured out what _electrolocation_ meant all on his own, without having to use the internet! That means he's a smart guy, and Artie likes smart people. Brittany's intelligent, but she's not smart enough to hold smart conversations with Artie. This realization helps dampen Artie's disappointment. And really, he hadn't even thought about the email tracking thing until Wesley mentioned it, so it's not like he should be heartbroken over a hope he had for all of three seconds. "Okay, whatever. That's cool, man."

"But I see what you're trying to say," Wesley says hurriedly, trying to compensate. "How Hatch is brainwashing us—"

Artie does a little skip with sudden enthusiasm. "_That's_ what I'm getting at!" he exclaims. "Hatch—"

"—is raising an army," Wesley states.

Artie trips in shock. And six months of using his legs again isn't enough to help him coordinate his fall, so he lands painfully. "Ouch," he hisses. "Ow. Owie."

"Are you okay?" Wesley asks in concern, kneeling down close to Artie.

Now that they're in close quarters, Artie whispers quickly, sharing a deep-seated secret. "I'm fine, but hey—that's not the way I would have put it, but that's what I've totally been thinking. Hatch isn't keeping us for better education or better lives. And he's not telling us this apex predator stuff to raise our self-esteem. He's building a business out of us. He's building war machines out of us. …He's trying to make all of us into cold-blooded killers."

They stare at each other, processing this rebellious thought.

"So," Wesley finally whispers. "What do we do now?"

* * *

><p><strong>Brittany Pierce<strong>

* * *

><p>One day, a scientist pulls Brittany out of class and takes a bunch of pictures of her face and what seems to be her <em>nose<em>.

Brittany stares at her nose in the mirror for about an hour afterwards, trying to figure out what's so special about it. All she figures out is that it's a bump in the middle of her face, and that sometimes it makes salty bits of yellow stuff and baby hairs. Mercedes calls it gold-digging. She also slaps Brittany's hand down and tells her that everybody hates nose-gold, and to blow it into a tissue instead if it starts itching.

Sometimes, she hears Lucy crying in her room. She tries to offer a granola bar, which just makes Lucy slam the door in her face.

And then, one day, Lucy disappears.

Even though the large redhead hadn't exactly been the nicest girl, Brittany's still concerned. She still misses Sam terribly; he'd been a lot like her, like really happy and stuff. So another family member to appear and then disappear so quickly worries her.

"Where did Lucy go?" she whispers to Kurt when they're in class.

Kurt shrugs. "Maybe she's on a mission."

"But she doesn't even have a power," Brittany argues.

Kurt looks at her, one eyebrow raised. "How do you know that?"

"She didn't tell me."

"Britt, I haven't told you that I have a power. Does that mean I don't have one?"

Brittany cocks her head. "Your mind told me."

Kurt stiffens. "Hatch said we're not supposed to talk about powers."

"We're not talking."

"Your mouth's moving."

Brittany clamps her mouth shut. Okay. Fine. Except now she can't tell Kurt _how_ she knows that Kurt has a power. She actually doesn't know how she found out; she just_knows_. Hatch tells her that her power involves something with blocking gates in brain neurons. She really doesn't know what that means, but it apparently can make people not feel pain or sadness or other bad things. All she has to do is touch them and it feels like this little spark travels down her arm into their body and up into their head. If they don't have a big bright light, it feels warm up there. If they do, then it's really hot and she can feel other sparks up there too. If the person's unconscious or drugged up or Sunshine on her sad days after she comes back from her missions, then when Brittany's spark gets up into their mind, it's cold there.

With Lucy, there's nothing there. No cold, no hot, no warm. It's like her spark just disappears down there and never comes back.

There's something weird about Lucy and Brittany doesn't know what to call it, other than, simply, _Lucy has no power._ Maybe that's why she can't be at Elgen?

"Brittany, can you read that sentence for me?" their teacher asks.

Brittany snaps out of her thoughts and looks at Kurt in panic. He rolls his eyes and uses his finger to point to the first word on the page.

"The… cow j-m-p-d, jumped… oh-ver the moo-oo-oon."

* * *

><p>The next day, a new girl arrives. She's pretty, with long blonde hair and a cute, tiny nose. She's not as skinny as Brittany is, but she looks like she's getting there. She spends most of her time staring at the floor shyly, so she totally misses Puck's a-little-too-long stare. (Puck totally says he wasn't staring at her over dinner later.)<p>

Brittany bounds over to her. "I like your hair," she admires excitedly. "It's prettier than mine is. My name is Brittany."

The new blonde girl smiles softly and looks up slowly. Brittany notices her eyes are a brilliant green and decides that she likes this new girl a _lot_.

"My name is Quinn."

* * *

><p>Quinn is really Lucy.<p>

Brittany can accept that.

Quinn and Lucy are really two different people though. Maybe when Lucy went away for a couple weeks to switch bodies, she accidentally chose a body that still had somebody else's consciousness still inside it. Or maybe it's just that, whenever people switch their faces, their personalities change too.

But whereas Lucy was desperately mean, Quinn is calm and smooth. Lucy _wanted _everybody to like her; Quinn just knows that they will eventually. Lucy was an overeager bitch; Quinn is a regal diva.

When it gets out that Quinn is really Lucy, there are mixed reactions. Puck spends a lot of time staring; Artie explains to her that Puck is growing up. When she asks Artie when she'll grow up, Artie just smiles and says that she's already pretty mature for her age. Brittany doesn't quite know how to take this, but she accepts it gleefully and kisses him on the nose in thanks.

Kurt and Mercedes are a little meaner when it comes to Quinn. Kurt flaunts pink feathers and a leopard print jacket one day and glares at Quinn, just waiting for the pretty blonde to say something—but she doesn't. She just smiles in a not-so-nice way and leaves it at that, and Kurt later joins Mercedes in fuming and gossiping over the little evidence. After all, there's not a lot you can accuse Quinn of when all she did was _smile_.

Finn's overjoyed. He follows her around like a huge puppy. She treats him like a huge puppy. It's sort of sweet, if Brittany ignores the small glint of condescension in Quinn's eyes every time she pats Finn on the head.

Quinn doesn't move into Lucy's room. She moves into a completely different room, and this one is a lot different. Different wallpapers, different wardrobe, different everything. She's a different person, one whom she and Artie and Wesley and Sunshine can easily make friends with.

So they do.

Brittany's finally happy that she has such a strong family around her—smart Artie, gentle Wesley, bright Sunshine, and dignified Quinn. And then there's lovestruck Finn, tough Puck, fashionable Kurt, and snappy Mercedes. Her family.

Now if only Artie would just stop telling her that their family is just a fake cover for Hatch's evil plans…

* * *

><p>"Artie, please stop," she finally begs the fourth time he brings it up. He always does it whenever they're outside—and as a result, Brittany is starting to dislike being outside, despite the bright warm sunshine and beautiful open blue skies. She flops onto her back on the small grassy hillside next to the track. It's not even really a hill… more like a soft mound of dirt covered by a fake grass blanket, but Brittany likes climbing the mound because it makes her feel taller.<p>

Artie sits down gently next to her head. "Brittany…"

"This is my happy place," she declares firmly. "I'm closer to the sun here. But you keep raining on my parade."

"But this is serious," protests Artie. "Why else would Will gather us together and keep telling us it's okay to kill humans? Doesn't that bother you at all?"

Brittany shies away from the topic. The skies above her seem to darken just a little bit in their brilliance. "No he doesn't," she snaps back automatically. Then, "Who's Will?"

Artie leans forward secretively. "Wesley overheard Kurt telling Blaine that Hatch's real name is Will. Don't you find that strange too? Why would Will want to change his name? What if he has a secret evil identity?"

"His name is both Will and Hatch," Brittany mumbles, fixing her eyes on the beautiful blue sky and not on Artie's inquisitive face. "He has two names, just like we do. I like Brittany better than Sara."

Artie pushes, "Why can't he just use one name?"

"Superheroes need alter egos."

"So do supervillains."

"And you think Hatch's the bad guy?" She curls onto her side, facing away from him. Maybe if she shows just a bit of hostility, he'll back off.

There's a pause. "I got here a year after you did," Artie finally says. "And even then, you weren't very happy. You were afraid of Sam and Finn. Why was that?"

A bright flash of light. Somebody Brittany loved falling to the ground, jerking uncontrollably.

"Stop," moans Brittany. Long-forgotten memories surface slowly. She'd spent so long trying to forget because it'd driven her crazy. Long, wakeless nights crying until Sunshine came, and Hatch promised her that he'd get rid of the nightmares for her. It worked, having Sunshine sleep in the room next to her; Brittany no longer had terrifying dreams of struggling in the dark, struggling for breath, struggling because her life depended on it—

She freezes when Artie's hand closes around hers, and it's only then that she realizes she's been tugging at a lock of hair nervously. "Brittany, calm down."

Pulling at her hair. Tugging it out. It's a nervous habit. It used to calm her when her mother brushed her hair.

Memories are suddenly flooding into her mind, jumping out of the dark corners where they'd hidden too long. Her mother. Her sister. Her sister on the ground, unable to stop her muscles all dancing out of sync. Just like her mother was the one to calm her down, Brittany could calm Heather down—but Sam grabbed her hand and pulled her into the car and she was screaming, thrashing, crying in the dark as arms held her back—

"STOP!" she screams, bolting upright. _"STOP IT, STOP IT—"_

Artie scuttles away in fright, but even as he does, a truly terrifying memory rises in her mind. One that she distinctly remembers seeing but had previously buried under her fear and revulsion of Sam and Finn. Eyes rolling into the back of her head, trying to hold onto consciousness, trying to get to Heather even as the car began to move—and an arm reaching back from the front seat and pressing a smelly cloth into her nose. The cloth didn't cover her eyes and she caught just a small glimpse of a sweater vest illuminated by the light filtering in through the windshield.

"**NO**!" she screams, not even at Artie anymore. Terrible images surface, of horror and immobility as Finn's huge body pinned her from behind, as Sam's uncertain face hovered to the side, as the man in the sweater vest ensured that she couldn't do anything but breathe in that horrible smell. Fear. Help me. Help me, help me, help me—

Artie's hands close around hers again, bringing them down to her lap where they can't pull hair out. A small part of her mind acknowledges this kindness, but horrified fear and adrenaline overpower it milliseconds later. Arms holding her back. Arms preventing her from moving. Arms pressing cloth to her face. Fear. Fear. Artie's arms holding her arms down—without thinking, she wrestles her hands free of him and backhands him as hard as she can, screeching, "Let me go!"

But the memories still linger, driving her mad.

The big boy pinning her in place.

The blonde, unsure of what he was doing.

The man in the sweater vest who told him to.

She leaps to her feet and runs. No matter how fast she pelts towards the safety of the building though, she can't outrun those memories. Finn shooting lightning into the sky. Sam pulling her into the darkness of the car. Will determinedly pushing cloth over her mouth and nose.

She faintly hears Artie's cries behind her, but this only makes her run faster. Her surroundings streak by as she explodes through the doorways, barely dodges around Quinn in the hallway, and runs past Kurt and Puck on the stairs. She can't run from her memories, but the physical exertion soon takes over all her thoughts. One foot in front of the other. That's all she has to think about. Just keep running—

The sudden impact is very unexpected, if not slightly squishy. Mercedes gasps as they both fly backwards into Mercedes' recently opened doorway. Brittany bounces off Mercedes' body and into her room, landing on top of a small mountain of stuffed animals.

"Watch where you're going!" Mercedes snaps. "That hurt!"

The cloth over her mouth, kept in place by a forceful hand. Fingernails painfully digging into her cheek. Tears squeezing out of her eyes, but not blurring her vision enough that she couldn't see his sweater vest. She bursts into tears as the vivid memory appears fresh in her mind, as if she was experiencing it firsthand all over again.

It's been too long since she's had such a vivid memory. The strange thing about terrifying nightmares—there are tiny but important details that you might not have noticed consciously, but the moment you fall unconscious, they slowly reveal themselves. Had she always known this before Hatch… before Will did whatever he did to hide those memories away?

Mercedes' hands are suddenly grabbing hers again. Brittany jerks away and resists the urge to hit Mercedes. Mercedes had taken care of her during Brittany's first several months here, so the feeling of the black girl's soft hands around hers are much more familiar than Artie's tight grip.

"Britt-Britt," Mercedes coos anxiously, kneeling in front of Brittany and keeping her hands down. "Tell me baby, what's wrong?"

"It's…" Brittany chokes on a sob. "It's Will."

"Hatch," Mercedes automatically corrects. This is also a familiar reaction. Brittany had taken almost two weeks to call their father figure by his proper name.

"No," Brittany insists. "Mercedes, you don't understand. It's Will."

* * *

><p><strong>Sunshine Corazon<strong>

* * *

><p>Blaine blinks sleepily at Sunshine as her hands drop from his temples. "Thanks, Sunny," he yawns. He hasn't quite figured out how to pronounce the <em>TH <em>sound yet, so it sounds more like _Tanks_; but Sunshine acknowledges all of what he's saying. The curly-haired boy knows that Sunshine is helping him relearn speech much quicker than would be usually possible, and he thanks her repeatedly for it.

Likewise, Sunshine is just as grateful to Hatch for this new use of her powers. This is what she had in mind when she'd first agreed to scientific testing with Elgen: helping people with Alzheimer's, assisting with language and speech, helping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

See, though Blaine lost a lot of brain power, one thing he didn't lose was the traumatic memory of that awful night. He hasn't told anybody about it. Sunshine's not one to pry, even if she is the one blocking memories. Really, what she's doing is shutting down the electrical signals to the fear centers in Blaine's brain, and that's all she sees them as: neurotransmitters responding to action potentials caused by electrochemical shifts of ions across cell membranes. And what Sunshine does is reach in there and inhibit the action potential, making it harder for neurons to send their electrical signals.

So what the scientists in Elgen did was show Blaine pictures of the bullies that beat him up. They took notice of what certain parts of his brain responded—terror, fear, and those tricky PTSD triggers. Then they printed off a copy and sent it along to Sunshine to memorize. And because she's been blocking off those parts of his brain for a couple months now, Blaine for the most part is trauma-free. He still remembers those bullies, but he no longer curls into a ball at the mention of their names.

When Sunshine had asked why she couldn't just block Blaine's memories (because blocking his responses to the memories was so much harder), Hatch had explained that those memories made him stronger. Because Blaine still remembers those bullies, he now has a reason to fight back against the injustice of it.

Brittany, on the other hand, is a different case. They don't exactly know what's going on, but the blonde has had trouble sleeping lately, so Hatch has been sending Sunshine into a little observation room located on the other side of the wall right next to Brittany's bed, and Sunshine's been blocking memories to prevent nightmares. Sunshine's not sure why the memories-make-you-stronger thing that Blaine's going through doesn't also apply to Brittany, but Hatch didn't give her much of an explanation. So she went to a scientist instead, and he explained in concepts she doesn't exactly understand yet, but it has to do something with the fact that Brittany's power is all about blocking pain signals, and that includes trauma signals, and that it might get super messy if Sunshine tries to reach in there and manipulate the electrical activity there.

Sunshine had a hard time understanding the scientist's techno-babble, but hopefully that will be fixed soon. Now that she's eleven years old, Hatch has deemed her smart enough to _really _get into the science of her power. When using her power before, she'd just reached forward blindly and disabled huge portions of the brain at the time. And that was messy. She'd reached a point where she could create auditory hallucinations and blind spots in people's vision; she could disable their rational thought, driving them into a frenzied panic, or she could paralyze them. But because she didn't know the brain that well, her blocks always leached over into other sections of the brain, and within a couple minutes, the subject would fall unconscious.

Therefore, in order to use her power to its greatest potential, she's had to learn the structure of the human brain backwards and forwards. This general area is the hearing and vision center; block signals here to render subjects blind and deaf. Here we have the brain stem; block signals here to lower regulation of the body, leading to urination, diarrhea, loss of motor function, respiratory depression, and possible death.

Death.

Strange how that's such a strange yet so familiar concept.

She's caused it quite a few times. On missions. Of all the family at Elgen, she and Kurt are the ones sent out the most. Hatch says that Mercedes has the potential, but that she lacks finesse, which impedes her potential. Both she and Kurt have learned how to fine-tune their powers; Mercedes can flip over a tank, but she can't carefully manipulate the inner workings of a lock.

Anyways, she's killed people. It's best if she doesn't think about it. She got over the fact a couple years ago by just choosing to perceive it differently—_the bowl of fruit doesn't have to be a bowl of fruit_—but really, when it gets down to it, choosing not to think about the memories is the best way to deal.

Horrible memories, like the time when she'd missed the target and killed an innocent bystander instead; they had to wait until the target moved to another location before trying again. Or the time when she'd knocked a teenage girl unconscious so some gang could hold her hostage—only she shut off so much that the girl died hours later. And most recently, picking off certain members of a family. Knocking construction worker father unconscious while he's operating heavy machinery. Mother hit by car while crossing the street. Blinded the young boy while at the tallest point of his swing, launching him out over a concrete parking lot. Leaving the goth girl alone, because she's special, because she might join them at Elgen soon.

But they're all part of the job, right? Sunshine isn't a horrible monster; she's just a girl following orders. She finishes her mission and comes back home and helps people like Blaine and Brittany, and she helps the scientists develop new ways to treat people all over the world with post-traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer's. Sunshine is a good person.

She is.

* * *

><p>She and Kurt might be out on missions a lot, but she's noticed that Kurt is spending just as much time with Blaine as she is. The thing is that Kurt doesn't need to be there; Hatch has strictly forbidden them from using their powers on other members of the family unless instructed to do so. And because Blaine is being treated for trauma, for less emotional response to certain memories, Kurt has no purpose to be there, seeing as his power is all about <em>enhancing<em> emotional responses.

But Kurt shows up anyways. Maybe it's because Blaine's the only other guy who seems to appreciate his presence. Puck has always brushed Kurt off, Artie and Wesley are always off doing their own thing, and Finn… it breaks Sunshine when she sees Kurt's crushed expression when Finn bounds after Quinn.

Can't Finn see that the blonde is totally dragging him along? She might seem nice and smiley on the surface, but really, she's got a manipulative gleam in her eyes. Quinn knows that, apart from Puck and Kurt, nobody likes to get close to Finn. Like, seriously, the guy _stinks_. Really bad. So she's give him a hug to keep him hooked and then she'll spend most of the rest of her time playing hard to get, which makes Finn try even harder, which makes him ignore all of Kurt's signals.

Well, Sunshine's happy for Kurt, now that he's found Blaine. At first, it'd made her kind of nervous when Kurt just sat by and watched, but now she's pretty good at ignoring the other boy. She just does her thing and, afterwards, leaves them to talk about stuff. Or more like, Kurt talking to Blaine and re-teaching him the English language.

Again, though, Sunshine feels for Kurt when Blaine's eyes positively light up when Wesley comes along. And then they start talking about video games and Kurt can't say anything because he's never successfully played a video game in his life. After he whacked Finn and Brittany across the face with his Wii controller and ended the experience by sending his controller _through_ the flatscreen TV, Puck officially maintains that Kurt maintain a six-foot distance from the television at all times.

Sunshine's tried to help by steering Wesley and Blaine's conversations into a path that is shared by all of them… only to find that there's not really anything that all three of them share. Kurt is a fashionable male diva with a current obsession in anything French—cooking and clothes and language; Wesley is a logical academic and a strategy gamer. They really don't have anything to talk about together.

So Sunshine just meets with Wesley for longer periods of time.

No, she is _not_ dating Wesley Montgomery. She's too busy with missions and Blaine and Brittany and neuroscience to strike up a relationship! Plus, just because they're the only two Asians, that doesn't mean that they have to be going out. That'd be like saying, _Well, Quinn and Brittany are the only two blondes, why aren't they making out?_ Which Brittany might not actually have a problem with. And neither would Puck.

They're only eleven! Puck hasn't even hit puberty! …Has he?

She's been meeting with Wesley because the boy really wants to recover his power. He tells her that his power was disabled by Blaine's electromagnetic pulse; he's had trouble starting it up again, and after careful observation on how Sunshine's been helping Blaine recover his functionality, Wesley's sought out Sunshine for help. They'd decided to meet in secret, both fearing that others would assume their long meeting times would be misinterpreted as a relationship.

Which is probably why, when Mercedes walks in on them sitting on Sunshine's bed, their heads bowed together, talking quietly, that she squeals in delight and flies into the common room, screaming to everybody there that Asian babies are on the way. Sunshine follows Mercedes in a desperate attempt to reign her back, but already realizing that the cat's out of the bag and it's way too late to catch it again.

"Dammit!" cries Mercedes. "Everybody's pairing up right and left! Puck, you be my date, 'kay?"

"What? No!" Puck retreats to the other side of the common room where Quinn is diligently painting Finn's nails bright pink.

Quinn looks up at Mercedes quizzically. "Who's going out?"

Mercedes counts her fingers as she lists off her ridiculous list of relationships within Elgen. "Well, I'm not _saying_ that they're going out, I'm just observing that the pair seem to hang out a lot together." She points at Sunshine. "There's our Asian couple. There's you and Finn."

"Finn and I—" Quinn interjects indignantly, but Mercedes just holds up a hand.

"No, girl, you be spendin' lotsa time together, and that counts," she says. "Then there's Bartie and Klaine."

"Bartie?" Finn asks, confused. "Klaine?"

"Brittany and Artie," Quinn hisses. "And Kurt and Blaine. 'Cedes is mashing names together because they're 'together'."

Finn looks over Sunshine's shoulder—at Wesley, Sunshine belated realizes, and she puts a little distance between them. "What are they then?"

Mercedes follows Finn's gaze. "Oh, they're—"

"We're nothing," Sunshine interrupts hotly. "I was helping Wesley."

"…_helping_…" giggles Mercedes.

Sunshine can feel the heat rising on her cheeks. "You had no right to barge into my room."

"In your room," the chocolate-skinned girl simpers. "On your _bed._"

"It was meant to be private," barks Sunshine, and she can't help but stomp her foot childishly, because Mercedes keeps taking her words and twisting them!

"It was priiiiiiiivate," Mercedes drawls, prompting Sunshine to stomp her foot angrily again.

Meanwhile, Finn grins goofily at Quinn, who seems to be ignoring him. He happily declares anyways, "Our names rhyme! What's our mashed up name?"

"Leave Sunny alone," Quinn tells Mercedes. "Just because two people hang out a lot, it doesn't mean that they're going out."

"And no way am I getting anywhere near you," Puck growls.

Wesley finally speaks up; his voice is quiet but powerful, shutting down the quarrel bound to start up between Quinn, Mercedes, and Puck. "Sunshine's been helping me with my power," he explains. "She has been kind enough to give an hour of her time to treat me. We hardly talk, though I've been meaning to…" He trails away, then leans down to whisper in Sunshine's ear, "Don't let Mercedes faze you."

Sunshine's heart drops out of her chest—not because Wesley's suddenly so close to her, but because she hears the _click_ of Mercedes' camera phone.

"'CEDES, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU," the tiny Asian roars.

* * *

><p>Sunshine later asks Wesley what he'd been meaning to talk to her about. He requests that they go running together on the track outside, which is an odd request, because Sunshine doesn't need to do artificial workouts. She does plenty of running when tailing targets during missions. But because her interest has been piqued, and, oh to heck with all of it, ever since Mercedes paired the two of them together, Sunshine's been interpreting all their interactions differently, and she's had this strange mushy feeling inside every time she looks into the depths of Wesley's eyes during their therapy sessions, or this weird tingling sensation across her skin when she brushes against Wesley.<p>

Well, the moment Wesley starts talking, everything changes. And she doesn't like what she hears.

_Will is using us. Using us as weapons, as mindless soldiers, as horrible monsters._

_Horrible monsters._

And that is when Sunshine runs. Runs off the track and back into Elgen and away from the terrifying proposition that Wesley had just told her. But though she hides in the privacy of her room, that little idea has lodged itself in her brain. And as she falls asleep later that night, thoughts of rebellion and revolution begin to whirl about her mind.

* * *

><p><strong>Finn Hudson<strong>

* * *

><p>Quinn says she's Lucy's cousin.<p>

Finn believes her.

Kurt had scoffed that he'd believe anything she'd say… and Finn doesn't deny it. Because he really trusts her. Because she's pretty and lovely and… and… well, she can actually stand to be around him. Most of the time. But at least she tries! Mercedes already hated him after Brittany and his smell just gives her reason to avoid him more; Wesley has a pretty good poker face, but the first time Blaine had caught a whiff… the disgust on his face had prompted Finn never to visit the new kid again.

It doesn't help that Finn has an abysmally low self-esteem. Sunshine told him so once. She had to explain what _abysmal_ and _esteem_ meant, but Finn has to admit that, yeah, it makes him so happy when people actually want to be close to him. Like Quinn. And Puck. It really did him a number when even Hatch started avoiding him.

Well, that's not really true. It's more like Hatch is super busy with important administrative stuff, but Finn can't help but feel like Hatch is avoiding him. The only time he really sees Hatch is on those super important missions, the ones where he's striking down private jets with government officials or setting fire to entire buildings. Those are the worst, especially when Hatch insists that they have to stick around to make sure everybody inside dies.

Again, Sunshine is his go-to person when he's having a hard time with stuff like that. As the smart girl who really knows the sciency stuff behind _how _to use her power, she's sent out quite a lot. And she comes back just fine. He catches her the morning before a mission, when she's got healthy stuff like bananas (for potassium) and peanut butter (for protein) and an energy drink (for B-vitamins). Stuff that will give her tons of energy (as she explains to him) so she can go out and… do what she does.

"I don't get how you do it," Finn admits to her over his cereal.

Sunshine spreads twice as much peanut butter over her toast as she does jam, which is really weird, because Finn would totally do it the other way around. "Do what?" she asks brightly.

"Well…" Finn squirms. Hatch said that they weren't supposed to talk about their powers or their jobs and how they use their powers to complete their jobs, but everybody already knows everybody else's powers and they discuss them pretty freely. Like, it's old news that Mercedes is permanently magnetic, but last week, she's finally been able to concentrate her magnetic power in certain parts of her body, like her hands and feet, allowing her to scale vertical metallic walls like a spider.

Like a really fat spider, Finn snarks to himself. Mercedes has always been a larger girl, but as they grow up, it's not her boobs but her stomach that appears to be popping out.

Even though he hasn't really worded his question properly (or at all), Sunshine answers like she's psychic or something. "Do you know what compartmentalizing means?"

Finn stares at her blankly. "Compa-wha?"

Sunshine finishes her reverse PBJ sandwich and begins to perfectly align the slices of bread together. She still doesn't look at him in the eyes, giving all her concentration to the formation of her energy breakfast. "Compartmentalizing is when you divide up your life into different sections. You know, like _Work_ and _Social_ and _Personal_. Keep everything separated. It's easier that way."

"Oh." Finn looks at her perfectly constructed sandwich, then down at his cereal. He's splashed milk all over the counter, plus there are a couple Lucky Charms lying around from when he'd missed the bowl. Whoops. "So… what compartment are you in now?"

Sunshine finally looks up from her sandwich, her eyes positively sparkling. "I'm not in _Work_ mode," she grins.

"But you're prepping for work," Finn points out.

The light fades from Sunshine's eyes. "Well, that I am," she admits. "And it makes it harder to not think about work stuff. Let's say this is a transitional phase between _Social_and _Work_."

Finn scratches his head. "Transa… huh?"

"You know, like changing between two compartments. It's hard, but you'll get the hang of it." She pauses, chewing her first bite contemplatively. "Okay, you know, this is really weird, so you have to promise not to tell anybody, okay?"

Finn nods eagerly, honored that Sunshine would trust him with a secret.

Sunshine seems to see this in his expression and beams right back at him. "At first, I actually gave my compartments names. Like, I called myself different names when I was in_Work_ mode compared to when I wasn't."

Finn totally knows this feeling. In fact, he's already sort of doing it. "Hatch calls me Zeus when I'm working," states Finn proudly.

"See? There we go!"

"Can I ask?" Finn says hesitantly. "What did you call yourself?"

Sunshine blushes. "When I'm helping Blaine or Wesley, I'm Charice. And when I'm working, I'm Corazon. My last name."

Finn's about to pose another question when a series of three notes sounds over the speakers, followed by a three-digit number. Starting this year, Hatch has individually assigned them these notes and numbers so that he can call them to his office without having to call out names. Most everybody recognizes Sunshine's and Kurt's because it plays so often, but Finn's surprised that this time, it's his code. He smiles at Sunshine as he stands up. "Well then… Corazon, I hope you have a good day."

Sunshine nods at him solemnly. "Thank you. You too, Zeus."

For some odd reason, Finn feels a ripple of excitement run through him when Sunshine addresses him as such. Compartmentalizing. Yes. He's not Finn anymore, the boy who jumped into a pool and electrocuted his family, the smelly boy that everybody seems to avoid. He's Zeus now, the man who rules the skies with lightning and thunder.

* * *

><p>Or… not.<p>

Today, Zeus' mission is not death and destruction. And just when he'd been getting himself all pumped up… But it seems like he's going on this mission with Quinn, so that is a definite plus. Probably even a plus two!

It seems like he and Quinn are going to recruit this girl for Elgen. Hatch said that they've been tracking this girl for a really, _really_ long time. Her family keeps moving around because one of her dads is in the army, so it's hard for Elgen to keep track of her. But they finally found her in Utah, so it's an hour-long flight over.

Zeus has a strong feeling that Hatch isn't planning on asking her dads nicely. Not like Quinn, who says that her family was happy to get rid of her. If this girl's dads kept her away from Elgen for so long, then why would they agree to send their daughter to Elgen now?

Plus Zeus' and Quinn's powers aren't exactly useful for nicely asking. Quinn is obviously meant to disable the girl; Zeus' purpose is to deal with anybody who might intrude.

In other words, things might get messy. This is definitely a job for Zeus then, and not for Finn.

It's hard to get from Finn to Zeus, though, when Quinn's brought something distracting. She's brought a super-nice camera that she constantly uses throughout the flight—to take pictures of the cloudy sky, of the forested mountaintops below, of the winding highways with their tiny cars. Finn has never noticed it all before, but because Quinn spends so much time documenting it (and subsequently ignoring him), Finn starts to see the beauty in it too.

It's a different perspective.

They eventually land in Portland. Quinn snaps away with her camera like crazy. Zeus strides confidently next to Hatch, but the Finn in him can't help but feel even worse as strangers flinch when they enter the cloud of his body odor.

It doesn't take long for them to find their target in the museum; Zeus just doesn't know that it's her at first. He hears one loud voice that carries above the crowd, smartly talking about facts that nobody else in the group of field trip students seem to care about. Hatch is wearing these sunglasses that copy Artie's power and allow him to see Glows; he points out the girl, and Quinn starts to take pictures. Apparently, Quinn's power only works on Glows, so she has the ability to sense them. (Even if her power is super painful, Zeus still thinks it's pretty cool.)

_Click. Click. Click._

"Can I see?" Zeus asks quietly, leaning over Quinn's shoulder.

Wordlessly, the blonde shows him the zoomed-in photos she just took. The girl is very short compared to her classmates and wears a sweater with an owl on it. And a pink headband in her brown hair.

Zeus edges closer to Hatch. "Who's she?" he whispers hoarsely.

"Need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know," Hatch replies back, not even looking down at him. That's one thing he misses about Will—he used to always make sure they were eye-to-eye when he talked to them. Way back when he was in _Dad _mode, when he was still Will. Now, he's always in _Work_ mode and he's always Hatch.

"What's her power?" he questions. That should qualify as need-to-know, especially if things get messy.

Hatch hesitates before giving in. "We don't know," he says quietly, then gently pushes Finn away. "We only know she's a Glow because she's… related to one of you. Be ready for anything, Zeus."

Zeus' back straightens up a little more as his heart warms with pride. Hatch just told him secrets he hasn't told anybody else at Elgen yet, plus he just addressed him by his_Work_ name. "Yessir."

They spend _forever_ hovering in the shadows, tailing the school group with their target in it. Just watching. Just waiting. Zeus takes his time to fully observe the girl. It's like another kill mission: pick apart the target's strengths and weaknesses from afar, manipulate the environment to get them alone, and go in for the kill.

The girl doesn't seem to have very many friends. Most of the other kids just brush her off, even as she bounds up to them excitedly, spewing information about everything. Eventually, she'll tire of nobody appreciating her, and then she'll go off on her own, and then he and Quinn and Hatch will go in and take her to a better place. Elgen is tons better than the outside world—the world that still doesn't know that the children at Elgen Academy are Earth's newest apex predators.

It's only right that this girl should join them. She needs to know that she is not just a human being. She needs to come to Elgen.

He just hopes that this girl won't be another Brittany.

* * *

><p><strong>Noah Puckerman<strong>

* * *

><p>Aw crap.<p>

He knew there was something familiar about Quinn. Like really, really familiar. The thing was, he'd mistaken that feeling as a destined-to-meet sort of thing. And no, he's not a lovesick sap; he just thought that he might have more of a chance with the blonde.

Puck totally understands that he's just an eleven-year old kid, and at this point in his life, he's probably not going to get any action from anybody above fifteen. And the only reason why that age is so high is because he's been working out. Okay, yeah, work is an exercise in itself (setting things and fire and running away like hell afterwards totally gets you in shape). But then Hatch showed Puck this whole weight room and ever since then, Puck's been packing in the muscle.

Maybe he could even get a sixteen-year old to fall for his guns.

After all, they're just human beings, right? Just lowly animals, basically. And from what he's learning in science, _homo sapiens_ in the adolescent stage are practically sex whores anyways. And sometimes this even extends into adulthood. It certainly explains the behavior of the Ms. Marissa and the technician—you know, the technician that he and Finn almost killed last year.

Sometimes he wonders what happened to that technician with funny accent. The one who'd hurt Finn in the first place. Because he wasn't the guy that they'd found in the security room; they'd found another technician who'd also been in the room when Damian had squirted water onto Finn. And because he'd also been in on the water-gun thing, they'd decided that he deserved to die as well.

Only he hadn't died, because Quinn had stopped Finn. All three of them—Quinn, Finn, and Puck—had been praised for their decisive actions, but Puck had never heard of those two technicians again. And Ms. Marissa had been fired soon afterwards.

That's too bad, because Ms. Marissa had been pretty hot. In fact, she'd pretty much been the perfect example of what kind of woman Puck would go for. Bold red lips and vivid green eyes framed by flaming red hair; a body full of smooth curves accented by her tight bohemian clothes.

However, Hatch seems to disapprove of the idea of them going out and getting girlfriends from the outside world. He doesn't say anything else about it, but that statement alone sort of implies that he wants all the Elgen kids to date each other.

Ew. Just—ew. Gross.

But… if he was to actually consider it… out of all the girls, Puck would have definitely said that he had a greater chance with Quinn. Sunshine's too tiny, Brittany is all super twiggy skinny arms and legs, Kurt is too bitchy, and Mercedes is way too scary. (Plus Mercedes is also getting pretty fat, but if he said that in front of her, she'd probably magnetize a car on top of him.)

Hm. That's weird. Puck guesses that he's always considered Kurt as one of the girls. And though he originally had snubbed Kurt for being super homo, over the past five years, he's just come to accept that Kurt is a totally available option for possible dating. He's got more fashion sense than Brittany or Sunshine. Oh god. Sunshine was raised in a financially-limited Asian family and still doesn't know how to dress herself… and Brittany often opts for as little clothes as possible in the first place. Kurt's taken to playing dress-up with those two girls as often as possible, all the while sporting the latest little Marc Jacobs jacket or whatever. And a pair of sensible heel boots that match his jeans.

So yeah. Kurt's totally a guy, but he could just as easily be a girl.

But not as much a woman as _Quinn_ is. Just look at her! She's already developing a nice juicy pair that's giving her body some pretty great curves. She doesn't look like an eleven-year old—she looks like a teenager. Plus, they're actually the same age (everybody in Elgen has birthdays within the same month—and Puck's a week older than Quinn, so there!), so Quinn would probably be more likely to go out with him than some random thirteen-year old bastard who might take advantage of her.

And that's why Puck is so incredibly disappointed when he finds out that Quinn was really Lucy all along.

* * *

><p>Up until today, Quinn had been pretty cool. She was calm and collected, and even in the most stressful situations, she maintained a mysterious, icy exterior. Sometimes, though, the sun would shine through a crack in her armor—the faintest smile stealing its way across her face, the way light would just seem to illuminate her beautiful green eyes, a tinkling laugh that swept across the room like a gentle breeze.<p>

But when she returned from today's mission, she had bandages wrapped around her bloody shoulder. Now this wasn't the first time that they'd encountered resistance from the humans. Kill missions often involved gunfire—but really, guns had no chance against Puck's concentrated blasts of fire, or Mercedes' complete control over any sort of iron, or Kurt's mental manipulation to make them pee their pants, or Sunshine's instant KO via sensory deprivation.

And definitely nobody stood in the way of Finn's thunder. He was so deadly, so in control of his lightning strikes, from all-out crackling waves to precision cuts, that he was usually the assassin guy. They were even calling him _Zeus_ at work now. The thing was, this was just a scouting/recruiting mission… pretty simple stuff. Quinn takes out the person with the power and Finn cleans up the mess that follows. So why had Finn/Zeus failed now? It was either that the girl they were supposed to recruit had really good backup… or the girl had powers even stronger than Finn.

Or both. After all, the wound in Quinn's shoulder is definitely from a gun. And it was probably really unlikely that the recruitee had a gun on her at the time.

He starts his reconnaissance by visiting Quinn at her medical bay bedroom first. After all, he figures that the two of them are probably on the best terms. They're the two sexiest kids at Elgen.

"Hey Quinn," he smirks as he slides the door shut behind him. "First battle scars, eh?"

"Shut up," barks Quinn right away. She's lying on her side, staring blankly at the wall. "Don't talk to me about it."

"Whoa," says Puck, slightly startled. Quinn was never like this; she'd usually brush it off by insulting him or just being all cool and calm and crap. Not like this snappy red firecracker. "Whoa there. Battle scars are totally something you should be proud of." His mind warms with memories. "This one time, we were supposed to kidnap this important business man's daughter, and—"

Quinn glares at him from the corners of her eyes. "Shut the fuck up, Puck! I said I don't want to talk about it!"

Okay. Something's definitely wrong here. Quinn doesn't cuss. Quinn's a good girl from a good Christian family who doesn't cuss. More and more, Quinn's becoming a lot less like Quinn… and a lot more like somebody else Puck used to know.

And now that he thinks about it, they are pretty similar.

"Are you hurting?" asks Puck suddenly in realization. Crap, what if the pain's making her all bitchy? "Where's Brittany?"

"Who wants that ugly little bitch around?" sniffs Quinn. "She's so stupid, it makes _my_ brain hurt."

Puck tries to hide his irritation. Calling Brittany _stupid _is one of her trigger words. Everybody knows that. "Tell me you didn't say that to her face."

"Why not?" Quinn snarks. "It was so annoying, I had to tell her. She left pretty quickly after that." The blonde almost _smiles_, and that riles something incredibly protective inside of Puck that he didn't know he had.

"You know… that Brittany doesn't like that. You know that."

"Well, I don't like her." Quinn glowers at Puck. "And right now, I'm not really liking you all that much either. What are you doing here?"

Puck resists folding his arms crossly. Oh yeah, he came here for info. Except now, he's not really sure he wants to ask bitchy-Quinn about it. "I just wanted to see how you were doing," he placates.

"Horrible," she gripes. "One of Rachel's gay dads shot me."

One of Puck's eyebrows jumps upwards. Hatch had barely told anybody; he'd said it was a need-to-know basis, and until the recruitee came to Elgen, they didn't even have to know the name. It made it less personal and a little more professional (and thus a little more okay to use violence to get the job done). So Quinn knowing so much… how important did Hatch consider Quinn, to give her so many details? He figures that the recruitee… Rachel… that it wouldn't be very easy to guess that she had gay parents. That wasn't something you could observe. Hatch probably told Quinn.

"Why didn't Finn take care of them?" Puck questions.

"Because Finn's an idiot loser who was too busy drooling over the target to actually pay attention to my protection," growls Quinn.

Puck feels another surge of protection for Finn—the same feeling he'd had for Brittany. "Shut up, Quinn," he suddenly scowls back.

Quinn stares at him, shocked. "_What_ did you say?"

No way to back out now. "Finn's called Zeus for a reason."

Quinn barks out a forced laugh. "Right, 'cause he thinks he's such a hotshot. He just stood there, staring at that girl like a dumb cow, and then her dad came out of a car and_shot_ me."

That doesn't really make sense at all. Puck's seen Zeus in action. There is literally a visible shift between Finn and Zeus. Social giant to efficient assassin in a couple seconds. It's pretty badass.

"Yeah, so what happened with you?" challenges Puck. "Why didn't you just knock that girl flat?"

"Are you stupid?" Quinn explodes. "Her dad fuckin' shot me, you fucktard!"

Her cusses sound unnatural, like she's trying to force them into her speech so she can sound like a badass. "Stop it, Quinn," Puck says immediately. "Just stop cussing. It doesn't work. You never cuss anyways."

"I can f—"

"_No_," Puck interjects. "No, you can't."

"I can." Quinn lifts her chin haughtily. "I can fuckin' do all the shit I want. I can do fuckin' _anything._"

Oh yeah, that's right. He remembers hearing that her power's like a grounding wire—if they try to direct their electricity-based powers on her, it doesn't work. She just diverts it right into the ground. But then she'd proudly told him in secret that Elgen scientists were trying to see if she could divert their powers into something else. You know, like if Finn shot her full of thunder, if she could take that without harm to herself and shoot it at something else instead. And then she'd gleefully told him of all the things they could do with that, like double Finn's reach, or bounce Mercedes' power back and forth to multiply the magnetic strength. And what about maybe even combining powers? Like, how cool would it be if Quinn could mash up Blaine's and Wesley's power? That way, Blaine's power wouldn't mess with Wesley. Or what if Wesley and Sunshine's powers were combined, using Wesley's power to transmit brain-shut-down waves across an entire town?

The possibilities were endless. And Quinn would be truly powerful. The most powerful person in the world, probably. She probably already considered herself pretty powerful, which is why she always acted so cool and professional before.

Except she was now confined to a medical bed, taken out of action by a single gunshot; and that careful exterior of ice was gone, replaced by a fiery bitchy personality that Puck remembered all too well.

"You can do whatever you want as long as you stay _Quinn. _Because you know what? Quinn is actually somebody," Puck bites back. "Lucy? You're nothing. _Nothing_."

The blonde who had been disguised so cleverly as Quinn glowers at him. "Fuck you."

Puck laughs. "See that? Cussing doesn't do shit. Tossing in a million _fucks_ everywhere doesn't make you a badass. It makes you a sad wannabe. It makes you a sad wannabe bitch who lashes out at everybody—"

He was going to finish that sentence positively. Something positive about the perfectly blonde Quinn versus the desperate bitch that was the redheaded Lucy. But he never gets there, because the _most __**agonizing **_pain tears his body into pieces. It literally feels like his body is being torn apart, molecule by molecule. And maybe it is. He learned in science that the bodies of both _homo sapiens_ and _homo electro_ run via electricity.

Maybe Lucy/Quinn's power isn't just a grounding wire. Maybe it's also a draining power. Maybe she can pull the electricity straight from his body like she's doing now, shutting down all his functions, leaving him absolutely powerless and screaming in total torture, screaming as it feels like his life is disappearing down this black hole that is Lucy's dark grimace of satisfaction.

He can't believe it.

She's getting off on his torture.

She's smiling, a full vicious grin as he slumps helplessly to the ground, the edges of his vision are going dark as his body reaches the edge of dysfunction.

And then it's over. He's panting on the ground, his skin sticky with cold sweat, his body burning with the sizzling aftereffects, the empty ghosts of pain still ebbing at the edges of his consciousness. The smooth tiled floor, the dim lighting of the room, the echoes of a sharp, commanding voice above his head. Slowly, it all comes back together, echoing again and again and again until it all snaps up to a single point of focus—

"Get the fuck out of my room, Noah."

It takes another couple seconds for Puck to comprehend what Quinn's telling him. Lucy. Quinn. It doesn't really matter anymore. They're the same person. Different faces of the same bitch. Quinn is the ice queen mask; Lucy is the volcanic heat inside. Together, they're an explosive weapon that just erupted all over Puck, and he's barely able to pick himself off the floor like a pathetic wimp.

The back of his mind wonders why Hatch hasn't arrived. They're not supposed to use their powers on each other. Fuck, Hatch even still makes it a rule that they don't talk about their powers, even though everybody knows everybody else's powers already. But Quinn just illegally tortured Puck. Shouldn't Hatch be coming around now?

Puck tries to pull himself to his feet. Quinn is louder, bitchier, almost screaming at him to get out. He ignores her. His body still isn't at full-functioning capacity. Everything hurts.

And if his heart is aching too, his mind does a great job at telling it to shut the fuck up.

Quinn might be able to crush his body, but she'll never have a hold over his mind—and he's just decided that he's going to give Quinn the horrible hell she just put him through. Forget about Artie's conspiracy about Hatch really being an evil Will; Puck's going to start his own rumor. But unlike Artie's secretive whispers, this one's going to spread like wildfire: see, he knows that if ice queen Quinn can't win a fight with words, hot-headed Lucy will kick in with her pain-inducing power to physically beat them down.

It won't be long before nobody in Elgen has a scrap of love left for her.

* * *

><p><strong>Mercedes Jones<strong>

* * *

><p>Mercedes is <em>very<em> surprised when Puck agrees to go on a date with her.

Normally, she'd also be incredibly delighted, but there's something haunted behind Puck's expression that keeps her from coordinating their outfits. At least, right away, anyways.

Besides, Puck's sudden arrival in her life brings up a whole 'nother bucket of gossip that she immediately shares with Kurt.

Kurt exaggerates his sigh the moment Mercedes bursts into his room. "Not another conspiracy theory from Artie," he groans, setting his nail polish down.

"No conspiracy theories!" Mercedes hisses excitedly.

"Stop… don't close the door!" Kurt whines. "Why—?"

Mercedes plops down next to him. "Because gossip is all about _secrets_," she giggles. "If it wasn't a secret, there'd be no point to gossip about it." Kurt looks like he's about to complain, but Mercedes spots the light that goes off behind his eyes and knows she has his attention. "Are you going to listen or not?" she prompts before he can say anything else.

"Who's involved?" replies Kurt guardedly.

Mercedes grins teasingly. "Puck asked me out."

Kurt positively _squeals._ "He _did?_"

"Just now," Mercedes grins. "But there's so much more to that. He visited Quinn right before he came to me!"

Kurt furrows his brow. "Wait… how do you know that? Did he tell you?"

Mercedes tosses a lock of hair over her shoulder. "I have my resources. Anyways, he fell out with Quinn before he came to me," she boasts. "He's really mad at her now. And he chose me."

"Of course he would," Kurt agrees.

Mercedes leans closer. "I told you something," she says. "Now you have to tell me something." She notices the change in his expression and quickly retorts, "Nah-uh-uh, don't you go there, Kurtie. You've been here the longest, I _know_ you have your claws in everything. You _know_ everything. Tell me something juicy. Like what happened with the failed recruiting mission?"

Kurt jerks in surprise. "How'd you even know it was a recruiting mission?"

Mercedes rolls her eyes. "Duh, Kurtie. Everybody knew. Another one of us is joining so soon after Wesley and Blaine got here? That's definitely something to talk about."

Kurt sighs. "Alright, if you insist… Finn—"

"Not Finn again," groans Mercedes. She still doesn't know why Kurt can't see that Finn's straight as a bean pole. "Boy, get over him. It's been _years_. He's not budging."

"I'm not talking about _that_," Kurt growls, his face flushing hot. "Finn went on the mission too. With Quinn."

Mercedes' mind goes into overdrive at the possibilities. "Finn and Quinn!" she squeaks. "Holy crap, their names even rhyme! Did Finn save Quinn from death on the failed mission? Did Quinn finally give into Finn's advances and kiss him? Is that why Puck dumped her for me?"

"'Cedes, shut up, you have no idea what you're talking about," Kurt cries, without a trace of malice in his insult.

"That's what happens on TV," Mercedes grumps quietly.

"Aaanyways," Kurt continues, "Finn says that Hatch took a bullet for him." Kurt shakes his head. "And get this: Finn actually called him _Will_ this time. And when I corrected him…" He mimics Finn's voice. "_No, Kurt, you don't understand. It's Will._"

Mercedes doesn't hear the rest of Kurt's explanation about how Finn is suddenly calling their caretaker by his old name again. She just hears that sentence again and again.

* * *

><p><em>Brittany, collapsed on the ground in front of Mercedes' room. Brittany, crying as she recounted her memories while Mercedes held her tight. "No, Mercedes. You don't understand. It's Will. He suffocated me with this gross-smelling cloth. He's the one who destroyed my life."<em>

* * *

><p><em>In his memory, Finn, collapsed on the ground next to Will's unconscious body. Finn, talking to Kurt, a steely resolution in his eyes. "No, Kurt. You don't understand. It's Will. He jumped in front of a bullet for me. He's the one who saved my life."<em>

* * *

><p>Brittany and Finn. Both have the combined IQ of a tomato. Both were fairly straightforward and innocent and honest. Both don't have a manipulative bone in their body. And both are citing contradictory truths about their… their dad.<p>

It's been a while since Mercedes has talked to Will.

Hatch has always been the one to brief them on missions. He orders them to do stuff and they do it. Then they go home and Hatch disappears into his office and they disappear into their rooms, and that is that.

Mercedes realizes it's been a very long time since she's had a casual conversation with Will. Anything resembling those old days when she was six years old, and Will took them out to the zoo, and they got to pet the sheep and watch the monkeys do a funny routine and swim with the dolphins.

She's eleven now, and she's an adult with a job that requires her to lift super heavy metal things and crush other smaller things with it while Will shouts instructions into her Bluetooth headset.

According to Brittany, Will is an evil man, somebody who's taking advantage of their powers and using them for his own gain. In fact, what Brittany says is sounding awfully a lot like Artie's conspiracy theory: that Hatch doesn't care a glob of spit for them, and he's just using them as weapons so he can take over the world.

Then there's Finn, who came to Elgen the year after Mercedes had. She, Finn, Kurt, and Puck—they considered themselves the original four. (It used to be the original five. Time does funny things to your memory, erasing all those ugly thoughts, and all she can really think about now is how she misses that shock of blonde hair and that beaming smile. She wishes that Sam had decided to stay with them instead of going back to his family.) According to Finn, Will is the man who took them under his wing, who took them out of poverty, out of life with those lowly human beings and helped them realize their full potential and what they could do with it.

Hatch is still Will deep down inside, and Will is still a man who loves them.

Mercedes wants to believe this with all her heart.

But Brittany… Brittany wouldn't lie. Why would she? She loves everybody. She even loves Finn, the boy who, for the longest time, Mercedes had believed to be her ruthlessly cruel kidnapper. For the most part, she's come to peace with those thoughts, but when confronted with the idea that Will might have been the ruthlessly cruel kidnapper, Mercedes would rather believe again that Finn was the one, and not Mercedes' father figure.

But that would imply that Finn's not trustworthy, and he's the one defending Will's love for them in the first place.

Agh. All of this makes her head hurt.

Okay, what if the reason why Brittany's lying was because she's been _brainwashed_? What if… what if Artie's the one who'd convinced her that Will is evil? The more she thinks about it, the more that Artie's evil conspiracy tainting Brittany's memory made sense. She'd seen Brittany and Artie go out on a run together…. and then, minutes later, Brittany was sitting in front of her bedroom door, bawling her eyes out about how Will was a terrible man using them all as evil weapons for his evil pleasures. What if Artie was the one who had somehow implanted that idea in Brittany's mind?

It's all Artie's fault.

Artie and his stupid conspiracy theories. Of course he'd start with the stupid people first. Artie's a smarty-pants. He'd start with the idiots first and then move up the line as he got more people around him. It's all Artie's fault, taking advantage of the weak ones to push his own agenda.

Well, Mercedes isn't going to fall for him. She has to protect Brittany. She has to protect Brittany and Kurt and Puck and Finn and all of them… and especially Will.

She has to report Artie.

* * *

><p>A couple days later, Arthur Abrams disappears from Elgen Academy. Hatch tells them all during an official meeting after breakfast that, like Sam, Artie had decided to return to live with his family.<p>

A couple weeks later finds Mercedes missing Artie just as much as she misses Sam.

* * *

><p><strong>Kurt Corcoran<strong>

Kurt had never actually talked that often to Artie. He'd been the miracle of the day when he'd first arrived—a wheelchair guy who suddenly regained the use of his legs via a combination of Elgen's crazy technology and Brittany's pain-cancelling power. But he'd been the quiet guy who mostly kept to himself, and when the bitchy disaster that was Lucy had arrived, Artie had all but disappeared off the face of the earth in terms of The Most Important People.

As the original resident of Elgen Academy, Kurt figures he gets to decide who Is Important and who was Not.

Currently, Finn stands at the bottom of the Most Important list. He was that guy that Kurt still has hopes for, but has long ago resigned to being just bros. Plus, Finn seems to be going out on missions a lot more these days—or should they call him Zeus now? Either way, Zeus/Finn has a lot more blood on his hands than anybody else in the Academy. Hatch and the rest of the adults try to cover up as much as possible and forbade all of them to discuss anything related to their powers, but everybody knows everybody else's business anyways. Everybody knows that Finn's missions are usually assassination missions. So though everybody likes to pretend that their life at Elgen Academy is a normal life, Kurt subconsciously distances himself from Finn.

Quinn comes next—not because he likes her, though. She's obviously a revamped Lucy, and though she's definitely improved her body and attitude and, most importantly, fashion sense, she still is enough of a bitch by most accounts to be kept on Kurt's radar. (For the purposes of not pissing her off too much. God knows he doesn't need to deal with that kind of drama.)

Puck, surprisingly, is third on the list. While the guy constantly maintains that he's into chicks and their curves, Kurt's noticed that the other boy's mask slips often when he think he isn't being observed. Which is never; now that he and Mercedes are sort-of-not-really-but-maybe-probably-oh-what-the- heck-nobody-really-knows together, Mercedes watches him like a hawk. Maybe she hasn't noticed Puck eyeing Kurt occasionally, but Kurt certainly has noticed. It makes him blush, but he's got other things on mind… plus Kurt's not going to be the jerk that comes in the way of Mercedes and her first sort-of-not-really-but-maybe-probably boyfriend.

Of course, Mercedes comes in second as the best friend and confidante. If he has a problem, he goes straight to her. When she has juicy gossip, he's the first one she talks to. She gushes her praise when she loves the outfit he's put together for Brittany and offers tips on how to do Sunshine's flowing hair, which is so long that it reaches her mid-torso. They've shared secrets since forever.

At least, up until now, because Puck's suddenly jumped into their equation and suddenly unbalanced things. And also because of #1 of Elgen's Most Important People: Blaine Anderson.

Maybe it's the inner strength he shows while learning to walk again. Maybe it's the playful spark in his eye when he puts in the effort to play pranks on Puck and Finn, even though most of the time he has to sit and rest. Maybe it's his steely resolve to remain happy and optimistic, even when he's in pain or having trouble learning big words or dealing with crap. Relearning how to live his life all over again, and he still keeps on a small smile no matter what. Maybe it's because he's a very physical person, eager to hold hands and hug and…

And… maybe it's because Blaine reminds Kurt of Sam.

Sam's dead because his power got the best of him. Sam's dead because the electricity overloaded his body and shut down his brain. Sam represents everything that Kurt could lose and more if he doesn't protect those he loves with everything that he's got.

He's got Blaine now. Blaine and Mercedes and Puck and Finn. He has them now to care for.

And they have him.

Unfortunately, Kurt has one problem standing between him and Blaine: Wesley. Wesley Montgomery probably ties Mercedes for second, and definitely not because Kurt likes him all that much. Actually, if Kurt were ever to admit it to himself, he'd say that he hates Wesley. _Hates_ that boy's guts.

Because of Wesley, Blaine doesn't notice him. Blaine smiles in gratitude, laughs with a sparkle in his eye, and seems to touch Kurt a little more than would be necessary—like putting an arm around his shoulder or holding his hand during conversation, things like that. But when Kurt tries to prod things further, Blaine withdraws and switches attention to his best friend, Wesley.

He and Wesley came from the same place. In fact, they'd gone to the same school and known each other for quite some time. They have similar interests—mostly video games—and had mutual friends. They have a lot more in common than Kurt does with Blaine, so it's only logical that Blaine would prefer Wesley's company over Kurt's, especially the strange new world that is Elgen Academy.

It might be logical, but Kurt's heart refuses any explanation and settles for a seething jealousy.

Blaine might be absolutely clueless at times, but he isn't dumb. Once, over lunch between just the two of them, he brings up justification. "Wesley reminds me of home," he says. "Of the happy times, the great experiences, and the friendly people who didn't want to kill me for being who I am."

Kurt doesn't know how to react to that last bit of dark humor, so he just pastes a plastic smile onto his face.

Blaine covers Kurt's hand with his own and stares into his eyes earnestly. The touch sends ripples of warmth up Kurt's arm, but the words Blaine speaks are at complete odds with the feeling. "I'm so grateful for your company, I really am… but Wesley's my anchor. He keeps me grounded at home."

"_This_ is home," Kurt insists, leaning across the table towards Blaine. "Elgen Academy is home."

"For you," an unwelcome voice interjects. Kurt resists the urge to slap Wesley as he settles down at the seat next to Blaine. "I heard you've almost lived your entire life here, correct? We, on the other hand, still have lives outside of this school. And we intend on going back."

Kurt indignantly tries to object to this, but Blaine speaks up first. "Actually…"

Wesley turns to Blaine in shock. "What? Blaine, don't you remember what I told you about—" He glances over at Kurt almost guiltily.

Kurt quickly realizes what's going on. "Not you too," he bites scathingly. "Artie didn't like Hatch, even though Hatch was the one who fixed his legs! I'd hoped that his stupid conspiracy theory had left with him when he went back to his family."

"We're going back," Wesley states.

Blaine looks up at Kurt. This time, the gaze is stronger and more confident, and the connection he makes through that simple eye contact activates something keep in Kurt's gut that he didn't know was there. "I'm not going back." All that strength crumples when Wesley glares at him, dumbfounded; weakly, he defends, "Hunter and Sebastian. They're still there. I don't think I can go back to that school while they're still there. But I miss Unique. And I miss my parents."

"You can still see them while you're here," Kurt says eagerly. But as the words leave his mouth, he realizes that that's a lie. In truth, he's completely forgotten about his family. He… he has a mother. A shining Broadway star of a mother that he hasn't even talked to since he was seven years old.

He has a mother… and a twin sister.

He's totally forgotten about the twin sister that Hatch told him about! He'd wanted a best friend and he'd gotten Mercedes. Brittany and Sunshine had followed soon afterwards, and there was Sam too, and that was all it took for Kurt to forget about Hatch's promise of his twin sister.

Without a word to Blaine or Wesley, Kurt abruptly sprints from the lunch room. He doesn't even clean up after himself; he just has to talk to Hatch _right now_. He's eleven years old. It's been almost eight years since he first knew about the existence of his twin. Have they seriously not found her by now?

Kurt storms into Hatch's office, words already pouring out of his mouth like thunderous rain—but he freezes up when he notices the other people in the room. Quinn and Finn.

They're sitting in the two chairs facing Hatch's desk, so their backs are turned to him. Nevertheless, Kurt can easily identify Finn by the simple fact that the boy is gigantic and his head towers over the back of the chair. Quinn, on the other hand, still paints her nails in crazy neon colors. Kurt is blinded by their glaring brightness despite the fact that Quinn's fingers are almost hidden in the paws that are Finn's hands.

Quinn and Finn are holding hands. While talking to Hatch.

All three of them turn towards the disturbance that is Kurt. The moment Quinn spots Kurt, she snatches her hand away from Finn and directs her best bitchface at him.

Kurt easily ignores it. "Hatch, where's my twin sister?"

Hatch presses his lips together tightly. "Kurt, I'm in the middle of a meeting. It is incredibly rude for you to barge in like this."

Kurt cringes, but, in an effort to combat his indignation at forgetting about this extremely important fact about himself, he forcefully redirects his blame towards Hatch and Elgen Academy's incompetence. This all piles up to a force that cannot be stopped, and he presses, "Hatch, you promised! You promised that you'd bring my twin here!"

Hatch doesn't yell at him, but his tone is ominously warning. "Kurt, go to your room."

Kurt just barely reigns himself in. "Why haven't you found her yet?"

"We're trying—"

"It's been eight years! You're obviously not trying hard enough!"

Kurt momentarily blacks out.

He comes to half a second later. He's on the floor, writhing as pain racing over the entirety of his body. It feels like there's a black hole in his mind, sucking up all his electrical activity, depriving him of life. It _hurts_. Tears are slipping from his eyes. He can't breathe and he can't scream. He's going to die—

"Quinn, that's enough."

The pain is gone. Still, it takes another minute for Kurt to pick himself off of the floor, and in that time, Hatch speaks. "We're doing everything in our power to bring her here, Kurt. Her fathers, however, have been… reluctant. I understand your enthusiasm, Kurt, and trust me, I want your twin to join you here just as much as you do. In fact, Quinn and Finn's most recent mission involved doing reconnaissance around her current location. Thus, Kurt, when you say that we at Elgen are not trying hard enough, you are directly saying that Quinn and Finn have _failed_ in their mission."

Kurt's having trouble regaining his senses, but he still manages the strength to direct his eyes up at Quinn. The blonde bitch is _smiling_. The smallest curve across her mouth seems to indicate that she took _pleasure_ in causing him pain. She enjoyed it.

He doesn't notice Finn's expression of horror off to the side. Just Quinn smiling down at him, silently challenging him while wielding her excruciating grounding wire power. _Go on. Say it again. Tell me that I failed. __**I dare you**_**.**

"Go to your room, Kurt," Hatch dismisses. "I'll talk to you after this meeting."

* * *

><p>Kurt has just reached his own bedroom before Hatch calls him up to the office again. This infuriates Kurt even more—Hatch <em>could<em> have just told Kurt to wait outside his office! Why tell him to go all the way downstairs if the meeting was almost over? It's almost as if Hatch did it to _spite_ him.

Kurt almost hates Hatch then. Hates him for hiding his twin sister from him. He doesn't even know her name! He doesn't know anything about her, other than a blurry image of a picture that Hatch showed up way too long ago.

He's walking through the common room when Finn explodes into the room. He spots Kurt instantly. "Kurt! Quick! We need to hide!"

Kurt's really not in a good mood right now. Finn had been in the same room as Hatch and Quinn while Kurt had been on the floor in pain, and all the negative energy he possesses has made its way to Finn as well. He just… he just stood there while Quinn tortured him! He didn't do anything to help. He just let it happen. That's almost as evil as inflicting the pain himself.

Kurt doesn't have a chance to spew acidic hate all over his former crush before Finn practically lifts Kurt off his feet and tosses him bodily into a room. Into Finn's room. Kurt almost lands on his head, but his fall is softened by the thick layer of dirty clothes that coats the floor. His scream of indignation is muffled by a small avalanche of sweaty shirts that cascade from a table disturbed by his sudden entrance.

"Ew! Ew ew ew! Gross, Finn!" Kurt barely claws his way out of Finn's mess as the Big Friendly Giant slams the door closed. He's _so_ passed the point of longing to be with Finn. That's reserved for Blaine now. Kurt feels nothing but disgust and betrayal toward Finn, and his feelings are only amplified by the fact that he is currently buried in Finn's revolting waste. "_Finn!"_

"SSSHHH!" Finn hisses, his back against his bedroom door. "We're hiding!"

"You _kidnapped_ me! And I still have a meeting with Hatch about a _very_ important topic, which, by the way, I'm still upset about."

"No, you have to see this," Finn hisses.

"I'm mad at you too, Finn," retorts Kurt.

The goofy half-smile that Kurt used to love so much drops off Finn's face. With a truly genuine face, he apologizes, "I'm really sorry about that. About… not… standing up for you. I didn't want to be there, but…" He pulls a camera out of nowhere. A really, really fancy camera. _Quinn's_ camera. "Here's my apology," he blurts. "Quinn will probably suck out all my brain electricity for this."

As if on cue, a screech of rage echoes throughout the entire building, reverberating through the halls and walls. "FINN."

Finn shoves the camera at Kurt. "Quinn wouldn't stop snapping pictures of her," he announces.

Kurt's angry words dry out then moment he catches sight of the face on the camera's review screen. "This… this…"

"I thought you guys looked alike. Sort of." The goofy half-smile is back on Finn's face. "It's your twin, Rachel Berry."

"This is my _twin?_ But… but that animal sweater—it's _hideous_!"

* * *

><p><strong>Hatch<strong>

* * *

><p>They had gone into the mission completely unprepared, and so they had come out severely beaten.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Quinn followed Rachel Berry into the bathroom while Will and Finn remained outside. Or Zeus, as Will had started calling the boy. Psychologically, it was probably better for the young boy to start associating himself as two separate people during work and while at Elgen; it'd give him even more of a reason to be efficiently brutal on the job while still maintaining his innocence at home.<em>

_Anyways, Zeus had been tasked with watching the perimeter. Will knew that one of her dads was definitely watching. Though they had absolutely no idea what the girl's power was, his source had told him that one of her dads—the black one—kept a constant watch on his baby girl, even if the girl didn't know it._

_Zeus had orders to shoot to stun. They were currently inside a building; the excuse "it was a freak thunderbolt strike" wouldn't work so well in here. Thus Zeus was limited to electrical shocks that would not kill, but might be just enough to maim. Stunning power on ultra-high, if you must._

_He sent Quinn in after Rachel, knowing that the blonde was practically invincible. If the brunette tried to hurt Quinn using her power, as Will knew would probably happen, then Quinn would simply double the brunette's pain. The mechanism of Quinn's power _depended_ on that; she could only act as a painful ground wire on those with electrical superpowers. Otherwise, she was just like anybody else: normal._

_Will definitely had not expected the gunshot. Had Rachel's father actually been hiding in the restroom?_

_What if this was a trap? What if her father had noticed he, Zeus, and Quinn tailing his daughter? What if it had Mr. Berry's intent all along to lure the three of them into an isolated space?_

_Will had just sent Quinn to her death._

_"Take out the lights," Will barked. Zeus obeyed instantly, putting his hand to an electrical socket and flooding the museum with electricity. Their immediate area blacked out instantly; seconds later, the rest of the museum crashed, plunging them all into darkness._

_Except for Zeus, who, true to Will's nickname for them all, began to glow. A strong white light centered at his heart illuminates enough of the space around him to cast soft light on Will, who stepped away._

_"Shoot to maim," instructed Will. "Don't hit the girl."_

_And then Quinn screamed and Will released a breath of relief that he didn't know he'd been holding._

_"Bitch just fuckin' shot me!"_

_A little part of Will's mind sighed. While Quinn sounded like she really meant the words now, most of the time her words sounded fairly unnatural and forced. See, if the blonde was ever going to cuss up a storm, now would be very appropriate._

_Quinn definitely wasn't disappointing now._

_Will spotted it at the same time Finn did: the faint Glow leaving the bathroom, running. Finn unleashed a couple bolts—they left sizzling holes in the walls and smoking stains on the marbled floor, and one illuminated the runaway couple as it hit the small girl. Will's frustration at Zeus hitting the wrong target was immediately wiped away the moment he saw the glint of light off the pistol aimed at Zeus._

_Of course. In the darkness, Zeus was the easiest target to hit._

_Later, Will told himself that he was protecting Elgen's greatest asset. Zeus was their strongest weapon, their deadly assassin. He was their most powerful physical fighter. He had the highest success rate. Mafia bosses and corrupt government officials paid fortunes for his work. But in the moment, as he threw himself in front of the boy, the deafening bang of an explosive bullet ringing in his ears, Will did it to save Finn's life._

_The bullet that bounces off the nanocarbon bulletproof vest still feels like a high-velocity punch right in his chest, and Will goes down like a bowling pin._

_Nothing happens for a couple seconds. Maybe it's because Finn's in shock. But by the time the boy eventually does fall to his knees, begging, "Hatch, please be okay, are you okay?", the runaway couple have long made their escape._

_The rescue team thankfully arrives before museum security does, transporting them to safety: a small, screaming bitch of a blonde with a bloody shoulder, a boy who seems to have lost his memory of the last ten minutes, and the man with a cracked rib who's barely holding his sanity together trying to keep control of the two children._

* * *

><p>Will wants to just punch something. Himself, if it wasn't so painful.<p>

And yes, he still calls himself Will. He might tell all the kids and Elgen staff members to call him Hatch. It's a cover for his true identity. His leadership of Elgen Academy had long ago reached the point where using his true name would lead to lifelong imprisonment or death. What he was managing was a risky and incredibly stressful business. The least he could do was assuming a completely different identity.

Starting with getting rid of the sweater vests.

Yeah, he's not sure why he started with the nerdy teacher look. Maybe he'd been on a hipster craze?

But now he's just like everyone else—shirt and jeans in casual situations, slacks and a shirt when conducting business. No need to stand out. He's just your normal 30-some man, not a businessman managing ten children with enough firepower to transform Pasadena, California into a smoking crater with nothing left but a few insane, raving-mad residents running around like headless chickens.

Managing these children to run a successful business dealing in theft, kidnapping, hostage situations, manslaughter, and full-out city-wide attacks, while keeping said children oblivious or unsensitized to their highly illegal activities; for the most part, Will's managed pretty well. After all, they're just children. Easy enough to bend and mold as killing machines. But the children are maturing now; they're getting the point where they can think for themselves and logic their way through scenarios—in other words, much harder to mold and direct. Take Wesley Montgomery, for instance, who was taken in this year at the young age of eleven: a very intelligent, logical boy who saw right through the curriculum and immediately began to pick it apart, looking for errors and faulty reasoning. Wesley had bounced his ideas off Arthur Abrams, who'd been taken into Elgen at age nine. Though two years of education should have been enough to sway him, apparently discussions with Wesley had been enough to drive Arthur so far away from Elgen that he'd begun a mutinous campaign with his fellow Glows.

Will had had no choice but to confine Arthur to Floor D. No, he wasn't being tortured; just a little solitary confinement until the boy came to his senses. Or at least came to the realization that another further misstep would spell for much, much worse punishment than solitary confinement. In the meanwhile, he'd told the rest of the children that Artie had returned to his family, and that they wouldn't be seeing him for some time.

Still, the point is that there are still five more electrical children out there. He'd already had Tina Cohen-Chang mostly secured by getting rid of her immediate family members, but when he'd received reports of lots of strange activity centered around one particular Rachel Berry, Will had jumped at the opportunity. He'd just bring as much firepower as possible while still keeping things simple—that meant Quinn to deal with Rachel, and Finn to deal with the environment. Only they'd walked right into a trap, and now Quinn was wounded and Finn still can't remember anything beyond Quinn following Rachel into the bathroom (though he does seem to remember Will taking the bullet for him, and shows the appropriate gratitude).

At least the recon part of the mission had worked; they now had a sense of Rachel's power. Memory erasure? No, it couldn't be that simple. But everything points to the fact that the girl is dangerous, and Will knows that, next time they encounter Rachel Berry, they won't lose her.

* * *

><p>Bonus scene -<strong> Rachel Berry<strong>

* * *

><p>Rachel is in the most pain that she's ever experienced in her life. It literally feels like every single one of her nerves is firing off electrical signals to her brain, each one communicating their respective sensory signal—heat, cold, pressure, sharp needle-like pain, slow burning pain. Each nerve is screaming. Or maybe she's just screaming.<p>

She hadn't thought anything of the pretty blonde girl that had followed her into the museum bathroom. She was just a stranger hovering in the peripheries of her vision—up until the girl grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around so that they were standing face to face. "You're coming with us," she growled.

Rachel's fright manifested instantly on her face. "What?"

The blonde girl seemed to feed off her terror as a slow smile stole its way across her face. "You're not the only Glow, sweetie," she drawled. "Now, we can make this easy or hard."

"I… I need to go," Rachel said quickly, trying to move past the girl. Her dads had always told her not to walk off with strangers. People would always, _always_ take advantage of her and her power. She was very powerful, and even people who looked nice would instantly use her as a weapon, as a tool, as nothing more than a means to an end. Even this blonde girl could be dangerous.

The blonde immediately moved to block her. "The hard way, then," she smiled, cracking her knuckles.

And then every nerve in Rachel's body exploded in electrical activity, all translating to her body as pain **pain PAIN.**

She's on the ground, on her hands and knees, screaming but still somewhat in control of herself. Her mind is not disabled, and that's her weapon. She reaches forward telepathically, trying to touch the blonde's mind. It's not something she uses often (because she's trying to blend in, not stand out), but she thinks her dads would definitely allow for this one time.

Only… it doesn't work. Because it feels like the girl doesn't even have a brain full of electrical activity. It literally feels like the girl's brain is a black hole. All Rachel is doing is reaching into the black hole, and then it's sucking her in, sucking her everything in and then, _then_ it's pain beyond what she has ever experienced in her entire life. She tries to back up and pull out but the girl's hold is too strong and Rachel is _dying she will never stop screaming—_

And then she does.

A gunshot rings in the empty air. A warm body wraps itself around her.

"There, there, hun. Mommy has you now."

And when Rachel looks up into the woman's eyes, it's like she's looking at a mirror. Those same warm, honey-brown eyes that she instantly trusts, even though she's never met the woman, and her dads never told her anything about a mom. "Mom?"

"We have to go, honey," says the woman softly, her musical voice setting Rachel's frayed nerves at ease. Something in the back of Rachel's mind stirs in familiarity as she stands with the woman, and she obeys.

The blonde finally screams, drawing Rachel's attention. She'd thought that the woman had shot the blonde dead, and Rachel's ashamed to admit that she'd been relieved. Nobody should ever experience that pain, and even more so be the one to administer it. But feels an even greater relief when she notices the blood seeping not out of the blonde's chest, but her shoulder; Rachel's dads have raised her to believe in the conservation of life at all costs. She'd never wish death upon any insect, animal, or human.

Unless that girl wasn't human.

"Damn bitch shot me!" the blonde screams—and seconds later, all the lights go out.

Instantly, Rachel can see the girl _glow._ Her own skin has always shimmered with a dull white light in the dark—but the blonde is positively shining, lighting up the bathroom.

And then her mother—_holy God above, her mother_—is pulling her out of the bathroom at a run, and Rachel sees another Glow not five feet away. This one is just as bright, if not brighter, than the blonde in the bathroom. This one is practically his own sun, one that shoots brilliant bolts of lightning at them—

Rachel loses control of her entire body as lightning wracks her frame. Her mind is running at a million miles a minute, even as her mother continues to pull her along with one hand, aiming the pistol with the other. She wants to tell her mother not to hurt another person, even if that person isn't necessarily human. She's still trying to comprehend that she's not the only one—not the only one with a weird power that she sometimes wishes she didn't have. She realizes that, even though her mother is pretty much carrying her physical body as dead weight now, her mind is still very, very active. It's running on pure adrenaline. She's probably as powerful—and dangerous—as she's ever going to get.

She can't see anything in the darkness, but she can reach forward with her mind. It's not hard to find that bright, burning light—the Glow, as the blonde girl had dubbed it. There is so much electrical activity in that brain, yet Rachel doesn't find it hard at all to shut it all off.

Bam.

The boy is suddenly brain dead.

Rachel could keep it that way.

Theoretically, she could just release the electricity she siphoned off the boy's brain into the air harmlessly. She wouldn't be killing the boy; she'd just be disabling him permanently. His body would continue running but his mind would never function again.

That's why Rachel Berry is so dangerous.

But she doesn't. Every time she uses her power, she instantly feels ashamed of herself; she shouldn't be the one to decide whether or not this boy lives. This boy has family. He has people who consider him significant. He has people who _love_ him. And Rachel has no right to tear that boy away from all the people who love him.

So not a second after she drained the boy's brain of all electricity, she sends it all back in. One second, he's unconscious, but before he even has time to collapse to the ground, he's awake again, not really sure of how he got there and what's going on. Rachel calls it her reboot, like rebooting a computer—ending all its processes abruptly and starting it over with a clean slate.

After the reboot, she gets just a small glimpse into the boy's mind. A tiny telepathic connection, a tiny side effect of restoring the boy's life to him.

Finn Hudson.

A boy avoided by most but loved by a few. A very important few. A small, hyperactive, giggly Asian girl who listens and doesn't judge him when he cries. A tough-looking boy with a Mohawk who claps Finn around the shoulder and laughs. A skinny blonde who used to be afraid of him but now loves him unconditionally. And a fair boy with a wide smile and crystal laugh whom Rachel _knows_. She _knows_ him and she doesn't know why.

Again, Rachel affirms that what she did was right: she has no right to take this boy's life. She lets her mother carry her away, peaceful that Finn Hudson continues to live.

Years later, when Finn kills her mother, Shelby Corcoran, she'll wonder if she made the right choice.

* * *

><p><strong>Total words<strong>: 25,500  
><strong>Total POVs<strong>: Blaine, Wesley, Lucy, Artie, Brittany, Sunshine, Finn, Puck, Mercedes, Kurt, Hatch, Rachel  
><strong>Cameos<strong>:  
>~ In show, Hunter Clarington's only purpose is to turn the Warblers evil. His most notable characteristic is that he is "not even remotely bi-curious." He attended a military academy before transferring to Dalton. He's not a homophobe, but for the purposes of this story, he's a middle school jerk with serious authority problems.<br>~ At least Sebastian Smythe had enough time in show to get more characterization than "evil gay playa." In story, he gets the opportunity to redeem himself. Maybe?

_A/N: We remember Cory Monteith for the joy he was, and we remember his character Finn Hudson by continuing his life in the thousands of fanfictions running through this site. Though Finn Hudson may pass away in the show, both he and Cory continue to live in our hearts and in the words that we write._


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